Mum's Monday: A Wanted Man by Lee Child

With two feature length films released based upon the Jack Reacher books, I thought I would talk about another book in the series that has intrigued me.

Jack Reacher is the type of guy who now, after leaving his job as an army cop, lives on his wits. He hitchhikes around the country with just the clothes on his back and any money he has collected/worked for along the way. When his clothes become too dirty to wear he simply buys new clothes and dumps the unclean set.

This book, Jack is standing on the side of the road trying to catch a lift out of Nebraska. The problem is he doesn’t always lead a quiet life and this has led to Jack to now having a broken nose. This is not something that will make people want to stop to give you a lift. However, a car stops and offers him a lift and to top it all they want him to do some of the driving, which is rather interesting, as how many hitch hikers get to drive the car that is supposed to give them a lift? Answer: None that I know of.

Jack is a very observant character, and being in this situation, his curiosity starts to kick in and begins to stealthily check out the other occupants of the car, 2 men and a 1 woman. He notices that some things aren’t working as normally as all the other times he’s hitchhiked. This is so well written and points out all is not what it seems. It turns out the police are looking for 3 people in a car and now with their newly acquired driver, the total in the car becomes 4. This is such a clever idea and using a hitch hiker as a cover is pure genius.

The reason the police are looking for the 3 is because the 2 men have kidnapped the woman who is Karen Delfuenso, after they murdered someone near where Karen works as a cocktail waitress. The car is actually Karen’s car. Jack does notice that all the men have driven the car and not Karen and he also notices she is nervous and blinking to try and get a message by Morse code to Jack; a clever moment as it shows you would try anything to alert the right people to your situation.

Jack and Karen get away after stopping to rent rooms for the night. Jack has alerted the police to the kidnapping situation he is involved in and after checking the cameras at a gas station the police are also again on the trail. Although duping the police working on the roadblocks, unfortunately for the 2 men the cameras at the gas station don’t lie. So as good a plan as this was, it didn’t take long for them to realize what has happened. Jack is caught despite calls for his arrest, he wants to help the police.

Could this be adapted for the big screen? To be honest, I can’t see it being turned into a feature length film; the story is a clever idea and a simple one, but it mainly only fits in book form, not as a film. The other two films are packed with plenty of action, and compared to that, all you would see in this film is Jack hitchhiking, passing through a few road blocks, helping the police and ending up back where he started. It’s an intriguing read that pulls you in, but I can’t see it drawing you in as much as the book did on the big screen.

This book plenty of strong twists and turns. At the end, it goes full circle and he actually ends up on the same piece of road wanting to get out of Nebraska. With a few days passed, his nose maybe a bit less broken, it may be easier for him to get a decent ride this time. I hope so.