Here’s why everyone should read Dirty White Boys:
. . . Lamar sent him to his weeping mama in a bag, and oddly enough Toussaint Du Noir, as the leading black punk of the Afriques had renamed himself, sent Lamar a carton of cigarettes for getting rid of a wannabe. But they were only Kools, and Lamar traded them for a couple of blow jobs from a bitch named Roy.
Good stuff, man.
Well, I’m going to start with one of the series ones since that was the object of the thread…
Dirty White Boys gets retconned into the Swagger series, it’s still the right place to start.
Dirty White Boys
Point of Impact
Black Light
and onward.
H.
Also, Point of Impact was turned into the movie Shooter a couple of years ago so you may be familiar with the plot. Book is much better though.
Yeah, but it changed a lot of things for the sake of the movies. Not to say that it shouldn’t have, but they are pretty detrimental to the series plot, so it’s not something to go by.
H.
Lloyd, take a walk on the wild side and give my favorite author a try - James Lee Burke.
He has several main protaganists he has developed over the years, but the one he is most famous for is Dave Robicheaux, who used to be a New Orleans cop but now primarily works out of the New Iberia sheriffs department.
Dave’s a sober dude, having overcome his demons, which I personally dig (JLB himself has been sober over 25 years at this point). What he brings to it that Lee Childs lacks is (my opinion) he’s a far better writer. I consider him one of our finest American novelists. The beauty of his descriptions of the locale, weather, and his moral depiction of the motivations driving his characters far surpasses Lee Child’s work. There is always an underlying moral theme that goes deeper than what I see in Childs work.
You may or may not like the subtle politics involved, clearly JLB loves the New Orleans and Louisiana area and is none too happy with the prior administration’s lack of response about Katrina, but he doesn’t let it play a major role in his writing, he just expresses his opinions and leaves it at that.
I’m not saying I don’t like Childs/Reacher, they’re favorites too and I don’t miss a one, I’m just saying I find JLB to be more of an author’s author in his level of refinement and how he invests you in the plot and characters that Childs doesn’t come close to, for me.
In many respects, when push comes to shove, Reacher and Robicheaux are going to go to the same place, they get to the point of no return and god help their foes at that point. I’ve had some folks who I recommend JLB to who didn’t like the violence that ultimately results, but I always like that aspect of a book when the main character has taken more than humanly possible and has no choice but to strike out to protect his loved ones, and what he believes in…
JLB is also famous for having had his first novel rejected more than anyone else, I believe it was rejected over 100 times before it was published. At this point, he’s in the upper echelon and if you like what you read, you’re in for a treat because he has been plying his craft a long time (there are 15 or more books that will deliver consistently fine writing). He gets compared to Cormac McCarthy (sometimes unfavorably), bottom line for me is they too are different writers and I enjoy them both.
Further Edit: Another writer and protaganist I discovered that you might like is John Connolly, who has a character named Charlie Parker (like the Jazz great) who ends up in Reacher like circumstances. Again, I find Connolly to be a better writer than Childs, his plotting is more complex, and if you like the series there are probably close to ten of them you would enjoy…
Actually, I read both Burke and Connolly (both of them ;)).
But I was looking for non PI or Cop…
Nixx, if you’re in it for the writing, then you absolutely need to check out Charlie Huston. Very Cormac McCarthyish.
H.
Hey, I really like Burke too, but I believe you are wrong about the rejections. I don’t think it was a first novel, but a subsequent novel. I believe he published a couple of successfully received mainstream novels and then had a novel he tried to sell for years and couldn’t – something like ten years or more went by between novels. I think it was then that he switched to the mysteries.
Funny timing on this just getting bumped! I finished the new Reacher a couple days ago.
Maybe my favorite “comfort food” book. Ya, it’s formulaic. But I enjoy the formula. Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with playing the hits.
Earlier this year, I was in the hospital and having a hard time of it. Someone left one of these books on a table (as a parting gift, I imagine), and I spent the next two days reading. It was a comfort food book. I’d been spinning without a rudder, and it helped to have something to grab on to. That book was it.
I started the series from the beginning once I was out, but I stalled while reading book 13 (Gone Tomorrow) as other things clamored for attention. I think I’ll pick it up again during the holidays.
Jumping in to say the Repairman Jack series (from a discussion in Horror Movies). Try The Keep and see if it grabs you. Protagonist is an off-the-grid nice guy with a penchant for finding trouble and coming up with extremely clever ways to fix things for people.
@Houngan It looks like that book is part of the Adversary Cycle series. How does that relate to the Repairman Jack series?
He’s a character in the Adversary Cycle. Although he’s not in The Keep.
I would say Repairman Jack has far more ties to Lovecraft than to Reacher. Its a totally different genre. Not to say that the books are not good, they are but I wouldnt give a Reacher fan looking for something similar, a Repairman Jack book. That’s like handing a religious person looking for something like the bible The Necronomicon. Hey, they are both founded in religion!
The stories yes, but the character shares some similarities. I guess I just mix them into a “badass guy falls into dangerous situation, fights/thinks his way out of it.” The Adversary bits are very much not Reacher, but the Repairman jobs are.
You get about 1/2 real world problem of the day fixes, and 1/2 Adversary stuff. Stephen King loves them, if that’s an indicator.
True. Not trying to knock either one. I like both series but for different reasons. If I were recommending Repairman Jack to a Reacher fan I would definitely let them know that they are in for a more supernatural Lovecraftian setting. You are correct about the the badass comparison though. They both definitely fit that mold.
Honestly “Reacher style adventure with lovecraftian horror elements” sounds pretty damn intriguing.
Outside of the horror elements, a more accurate summary would be Dresden as fixer, or 007 as a regular guy. He’s got a Q, but not in a formal sense. The horror stuff he’s completely besides but has to deal with constantly.