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Welcome to the eleventh episode of the Reading and Writing podcast featuring an interview with Lee Child, New York Times bestselling writer of 13 thriller novels featuring Jack Reacher. Child’s latest novels include Gone Tomorrow
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“The ever-resourceful and vengeful Reacher takes on nearly a score of the bad guys in an exciting climax to an enthralling book…complete with cover-ups and numerous intriguing twists.”—Library Journal, starred review
“A superb New York novel…. Child grounds his hero’s hard body and hard-drive brain in believable detail, and he sets the action against a precisely described landscape.” —Booklist, starred review
“All good thriller writers know how to build suspense and keep the pages turning, but only better ones deliver tight plots as well, and only the best allow the reader to match wits with both the hero and the author. Bestseller Child does all of that in spades…. [He] sets things up subtly and ingeniously, then lets Reacher use both strength and guile to find his way to the exciting climax.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Thanks for the Lee Child podcast. Nice interview! Good for me to hear “My advice is to ignore all advice,” as I’m trying to break into the mystery field in a setting not done before (it also helps me ignore what he said about people wanting their lead characters to be superhuman, since mine isn’t). I’m glad to hear he starts from a germ, a paragraph or an image and sees where it leads him. C.S. Lewis got into the Narnia series that way, & I’m trying it too. And it was just great hearing him viva voce with that lovely English accent. Good questions–you got a lot of stuff out of him in a short time, low key, easy going, and most interesting. I esp. enjoyed his answer about setting the series here in the US, with him being from England. Very best wishes!
Don, thanks for the kind words re: the Lee Child interview? For someone with his success, Lee was incredibly cooperative and flexible in recording the interview.
And, as you said, he has a lot of good insight on what works for him – and I think his books and success speak for themselves.
Jeff
Love this. Especially his words about not writing to committee. Thanks for sharing the link to your podcasts over on WU!
@Normandie, thanks for the kind words. Glad you liked the Lee Child interview. He has a lot of great writing wisdom to offer.