Lee Child and I at ThrillerFest VIII.
Lee Child’s 18th Jack Reacher novel, Never Go Back, is coming out next week in the U.S. For those interested in learning more about the book, below is the trailer and background on the novel from the man himself, Lee Child.
I recently finished Taylor Stevens’ 2011 debut novel, The Informationist. It’s the first in a series of books featuring Vanessa “Michael” Munroe, an expert in uncovering information for her clients. She’s best described as a detective without a badge that’s not afraid to rough somebody up. Similar to Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, this book was about the main character and what she did to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. It started off slow, and trudging my way through words that most people outside of Africa wouldn’t know how to pronounce wasn’t fun. But once I cut past this and reached the half-way point, the story found its groove. As I neared the end I was eager to see how things would wrap up. It was filled with action, believable dialogue and a lead character I look forward to following on future adventures. If you’re seeking an enjoyable thriller, The Informationist is worth a read.
Below is the official synopsis and book trailer. And stay tuned for my interview with Taylor Stevens later this summer; it should be a good one.
Synopsis
Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle’s most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she’s never looked back.
Until now.
A Texas oil billionaire has hired her to find his daughter who vanished in Africa four years ago. It’s not her usual line of work, but she can’t resist the challenge. Pulled deep into the mystery of the missing girl, Munroe finds herself back in the lands of her childhood, betrayed, cut off from civilization, and left for dead. If she has any hope of escaping the jungle and the demons that drive her, she must come face-to-face with the past that she’s tried for so long to forget.
Over the past year I’ve become obsessed with audiobooks. They’re a great way for someone with a busy schedule (i.e., me) to enjoy books on the go. Whether I’m walking around town or brushing my teeth, I’m almost always listening to an audiobook on my iPhone or Kindle Fire HD, through the Audible or Overdrive apps.
Audiobooks are a magical form of entertainment because of the narrators that read them. These men and women are legitimate actors that breath life into the stories they read with a variety of intricate character voices, accents and dialects. The right audiobook narrator can make a mediocre book good and a great book excellent.
One of my favorite audiobook narrators is Dick Hill. Most famous for being the voice of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, Hill has nearly 500 audiobooks on Audible – including classics, sci-fi and fantasy, mysteries and thrillers, you name it. Hill is one of the most prolific audiobook narrators in the business and his ability to turn words into theater for the ears is impressive.
I recently had the honor of interviewing Dick Hill, and I hope the questions and answers below provide you with a greater understanding of this interesting profession. Enjoy!
How did you get involved in narrating books?
A friend of mine, Brit actor, was narrating for Brilliance Audio. They were looking to cast a WWII combat novel, and he suggested I get in touch. I did, recorded a couple pages of something similar I got off the supermarket shelf on a crappy little recorder and sent it to them. (They weren’t looking for audio quality, they’d provide that, they wanted to hear me read). Booked the gig, and knew I’d found my niche. Never looked back.
On average, how many hours does it take to record a book?
Depends on the length of the book, type of text etc. Generally I finish an hour of recorded book in around 75 minutes.
Do you read chapters straight through, or do you stop and start and edit the pieces together later to establish a seamless sound?
Susie is upstairs engineering and directing, and whenever I stumble or miss a word, we stop, roll back to a likely spot, then do a punch edit. She plays back for me to hear a lead in, then does an on the spot edit and I come right in and do it right. Generally.
How many audiobooks do you narrate each year?
I’d guess around 40 a year now, give or take a dozen.
From a business standpoint, do you have long-term contracts with publishers where you have to narrate a certain number of books a year, or are you hired on a book-by-book basis?
I’m paid per finished hour.
How are audiobook narrators compensated? Is there an upfront payment, a monthly retainer, royalties based on sales, or a combination of all three?
There are some works being done through ACX on royalty share, but I work strictly for fee. If Lee wanted to do a royalty share, or Stephen King, I’d be happy to, but those are not the kind of authors hoping to get someone to narrate their book on spec.
How do you make sure your recordings don’t include any background noise from inside the studio, like turning pages?
I’m quiet. I’ve developed a technique for moving from one page to the next that’s mostly soundless. If I do screw up, we just do an edit.
What is the most challenging aspect of your job and what is the most rewarding?
I find all the aspects I deal with challenging, but in a very good way. I relish the challenge of presenting the listener with the best, most compelling delivery I can achieve. It’s of the moment work, which I love doing. I don’t pre-read things, with a few exceptions. Susie preps the books, makes a vocabulary list to check, and gives me a character sheet noting gender, age, any accents mentioned or implied, etc. I use those to guide my performance. Since she’s prepped the book, she can alert me to any potential traps (e.g., don’t make the mystery caller too this or that) so the voice seems reasonable to fit the character it turns out to be. She generally doesn’t tell me just who those people are, or really, anything beyond performance guidance. I like to discover what happens right along with the listener. I love flying by the seat of my pants, doing cold reads. I’m good at them, and I think the sense of discovery helps with my work. Most rewarding?…pretty much all of it. Plus the checks. Getting paid to have fun, in large part.
Without naming it, have you ever had to narrate an awful book? If so, did you have to work harder or approach it differently than a book of higher quality?
Yes. Harder work. A couple were so bad I felt like a five dollar whore faking passion. I turned down any more work from those authors. Pretty lucky now, the publishers I work with most often have a very clear idea of the sort of things I like to do, and I’m seldom offered work I’d find offensive.
I’ve noticed that some of your books feature interesting audio effects to immerse the listener in the story. For example, Jack Reacher might be talking to someone on the phone and the voice on the other end is altered to sound as if it’s coming through a phone line. How is this done?
Those were probably earlier books. I prefer eschewing that sort of thing myself. If you’re gonna’ have a phone effect, then how about ambient noise, traffic, door slams, gunshots? I don’t include any effects or ask for any. I’m not aware of any publishers adding them any longer, though I’m not sure. I don’t listen to audiobooks myself, my own or anyone else’s. It’s immensely pleasurable to record books, but once I’ve done that why would I want to listen to them? Been there, done that.
What kind of personal preparation goes into getting to record an audiobook and how do you preserve your voice?
Occasionally if Susie gives me a heads up about a particular accent, I may go online to find samples of 15-year-old Malaysian girls with lisps raised in Irish Catholic orphanages till age ten then indentured as servants to a family of Germans with a Spanish head of the household. Other than that, I pretty much have a handle on how I approach accents, etc. Might not be Meryl Streepalicious, but then she has to perfect an accent for several hundred lines in a few projects per year. I do many more characters, many more books, so while I do try to do a good job with accents and dialects, my primary concern is to create characters and narrators that feel well motivated and interesting and further the author’s intent.
Recently, three of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books, Die Trying, Tripwire and Running Blind, were rerecorded by another audiobook narrator, Jonathan McClain, and released on Audible. There was a backlash from fans for you not being the narrator. Do you know why your versions of these books were replaced and will you continue to be the voice of future Jack Reacher audiobooks, including Never Go Back, which comes out in the fall?
Yes, I’ve heard from a number of concerned folks. I think what that is, audio rights for the UK are issued separately, and Mr. McClain has been doing those. I will be doing the latest Reacher, and unless something happens I expect to continue doing so. Folks just have to look carefully to ensure they’re getting the reader they prefer, I guess.
Aside from narrating books, what other kinds of acting have you done?
I’ve worked regionally in live theatre, onstage. No film, some commercial video, ads and the like.
You and your wife have extensive experience in the audiobook industry. How did you two meet, and have you had the opportunity to collaborate on a project?
We met when she played Guinevere and I played Arthur in a production of Camelot. In addition to our work onstage, once we entered the audio world I directed her several times, she’s engineered and directed me on lord knows how many projects, and we’ve recorded a number of dual reads, one of which won us both Audies, the audiobook equivalent of an Oscar or a Tony. Or a Westchester Kennel Club best in show I suppose.
What projects are you currently working on that fans should look out for in the months to come?
Expecting that Reacher script soon, think there’s a fall release. Doing the last of the Stephen White series about Dr. Alan Gregory, which is heartbreaking for us. Love his writing and character insight, and one supporting character, Det. Sam Purdy, is one of the characters nearest and dearest to my heart. Susie’s prepping it this week, and is raving about how good it is and wailing about the fact that it is the last.
The Enemy by Lee Child is the eighth book in the Jack Reacher series, and it’s different than its predecessors. This novel is a prequel that takes place in 1990, back when Reacher was a Major in the United States Army Military Police Corps. It’s an interesting tale that includes Reacher’s brother, Joe, and his mother. For those looking to learn part of the backstory of this famous fictional character, The Enemy delivers. Like most of Child’s books, there is an exceptional amount of detail – about weapons, the military, you name it. Longtime fans will enjoy this, while others may find it laborious. By the end of the book, twists and turns come at a fast and furious pace. While some of them are hard to believe, they are well thought out and unpredictable. Despite being a detour in Reacher’s modern-day adventures, The Enemy is a worthy addition to this formidable series.
Book Description
Jack Reacher. Hero. Loner. Soldier. Soldier’s son. An elite military cop, he was one of the army’s brightest stars. But in every cop’s life there is a turning point. One case. One messy, tangled case that can shatter a career. Turn a lawman into a renegade. And make him question words like honor, valor, and duty. For Jack Reacher, this is that case… New Year’s Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. The world is changing. And in a North Carolina “hot-sheets” motel, a two-star general is found dead. His briefcase is missing. Nobody knows what was in it. Within minutes Jack Reacher has his orders: Control the situation. But this situation can’t be controlled. Within hours the general’s wife is murdered hundreds of miles away. Then the dominoes really start to fall… Two Special Forces soldiers – the toughest of the tough – are taken down, one at a time. Top military commanders are moved from place to place in a bizarre game of chess. And somewhere inside the vast worldwide fortress that is the U.S. Army, Jack Reacher – an ordinarily untouchable investigator for the 110th Special Unit – is being set up as a fall guy with the worst enemies a man can have. But Reacher won’t quit. He’s fighting a new kind of war. And he’s taking a young female lieutenant with him on a deadly hunt that leads them from the ragged edges of a rural army post to the winding streets of Paris to a confrontation with an enemy he didn’t know he had. With his French-born mother dying – and divulging to her son one last, stunning secret – Reacher is forced to question everything he once believed…about his family, his career, his loyalties – and himself. Because this soldier’s son is on his way into the darkness, where he finds a tangled drama of desperate desires and violent death – and a conspiracy more chilling, ingenious, and treacherous than anyone could have guessed.
Lee Child is one of my favorite authors, so when I heard a movie was coming out based on one of his books, One Shot, I knew I had to see it. The film is called Jack Reacher and it stars Tom Cruise in the lead role. As I mentioned in the past, many fans of the Jack Reacher novels doubted that Cruise could pull it off. However, I’m glad to report that he was exceptional in this role. Not only did I find myself believing that he was Jack Reacher, but Cruise was incredibly charming on screen too. The supporting cast did a fine job as well, especially Robert Duvall, who injected some humor into the serious plot.
Speaking of the plot, I have yet to read One Shot, so I can’t say how the film compares to the book. But I can say that it was an intriguing tale, even though certain “twists” were predictable. What made the film even more enjoyable was the cinematography and score; both were beautifully done and kept me engaged from start to finish.
Whether or not you’ve read Lee Child’s engrossing novels I highly recommend you see Jack Reacher. It’s an entertaining movie filled with action, humor and drama that is sure to please almost anyone.
Below you’ll find the official film synopsis and two clips.
Synopsis
Six shots. Five dead. One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You got the wrong guy. Then he says: Get Reacher for me. And sure enough, ex-military investigator Jack Reacher is coming. He knows this shooter-a trained military sniper who never should have missed a shot. Reacher is certain something is not right-and soon the slam-dunk case explodes. Now Reacher is teamed with a beautiful young defense lawyer, moving closer to the unseen enemy who is pulling the strings. Reacher knows that no two opponents are created equal. This one has come to the heartland from his own kind of hell. And Reacher knows that the only way to take him down is to match his ruthlessness and cunning-and then beat him shot for shot.
At age 40 Lee Child wrote his first book: Killing Floor. It went on to win an Anthony Award for “Best First Novel” and kicked off the best-selling Jack Reacher series.
Below are two short-and-sweet interviews with Child. One is about writing and the other is about Reacher. Enjoy!
Today, the full theatrical trailer was released for Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise. I think it’s superior to the initial trailer because it provides additional plot details and gives the viewer a greater understanding of who Jack Reacher is and what motivates him. While Cruise may not physically resemble the Jack Reacher I envision when reading Lee Child’s captivating thrillers, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. After watching the trailer below, feel free to share your thoughts on whether or not you plan on seeing Jack Reacher.
Me (left) and Lee Child.
Yesterday, I went to New York City to meet Lee Child, author of the famous Jack Reacher novels. I took off from work and enjoyed a beautiful day in NYC before stopping by the Barnes & Noble where Child would be speaking and signing copies of A Wanted Man, his newest Reacher novel; the 17th in the series.
Upon my arrival, I bought a copy of Child’s new novel and went upstairs with the dinner I bought at Artie’s Delicatessen – you can’t go wrong with chicken fingers and french fries. Going into the event, I was a little nervous because, up to that point, I had only read three of the 17 books. And I didn’t want anything in the series spoiled by Child or the fans.
While I waited for Child to arrive, I listened to the last few chapters of Running Blind, the fourth novel in the series, and chatted with nearby fans. Before I knew it, it was 7 p.m. and Child was being introduced.
Decked out in khaki’s, an open-collar button down shirt, a blue blazer, and a beautiful pair of shoes, Child walked to the stage and was greeted with a warm round of applause from the room full of fans. The photos may not do him justice, but Child is 6-foot-5 and very slim. Not only that, but he’s a handsome man with an English accent, so, naturally, women adore him. During the Q&A portion, one woman asked, “Are you married?” To her dismay, he responded, “Yes.”
Child started off by telling us how he became an author. For nearly twenty years he worked for Granada Television in the UK, as a Presentation Director, where he wrote thousands of commercials, news stories and trailers. Then he said, “My boss told me something that prevented me from doing my job. He said, ‘you’re fired.'” This sudden unemployment, which came as a result of corporate restructuring, made Child write his first novel Killing Floor out of necessity. “I had to eat,” he told us. “And in the first 10 books, I made my former bosses the villains.”
According to Child, “60 percent of adults in the UK have never read an entire book.” They may have read magazines or parts of a book, but adults across the pond aren’t nearly as well read as Americans. Therefore, he made sure Jack Reacher and his first novel was targeted towards a U.S. audience. Clearly, it worked.
When it comes to writing he told us he never outlines a book. He has an idea and then starts writing. If he knew how the book was going to be laid out, from start to finish, he’d “get bored and not want to write it.” To him, writing should be like reading. “I’m just as excited to see what’s going to happen next as you are,” Child told the audience. “I give Reacher a problem and then make it worse,” he continued. His unique style involves introducing a variety of wild, but believable, situations in the first half of his books, and then in the second half, “I have to try and make sense of it. My plots might seem like a great deal of planning went into them, but that’s just an optical illusion. If you have an ink blot on a piece of paper, it looks like an amorphous mess. But if you hold a mirror up to it, it starts to look symmetrical.”
Child also talked about the controversial film, Jack Reacher, which is scheduled to come out in December. It’s been hotly debated by fans because Tom Cruise is playing Reacher. Since the character is 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, this put off many Reacher Creatures. Child told the audience, “There aren’t any actors that are 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds. I was flown out to Hollywood to see this movie, and it’s spectacular. Trust me, Tom Cruise does a fantastic job. You’ll leave the theater feeling as if you’ve just witnessed Reacher moving and talking in real life.”
I adore the audiobook versions of the Jack Reacher novels, so I asked Child if he had heard them and if he chose Dick Hill to be the narrator because, to me, Hill is the voice of Reacher. Surprisingly, he told me that he doesn’t care for audiobooks because Child feels they keep to once pace, and he likes to vary how quickly or slowly he reads. However, he did say, “Dick Hill has brought a lot of fans to the series, and when I switched audiobook publishers I did it under one condition: they keep Dick Hill as the narrator.”
Another interesting thing he spoke about was the two recent, digital short stories he’s written in between Reacher novels. He said the publisher likes him to release these as a way to figure out which version of the upcoming novel people will be buying (i.e., digital or print). And it encourages people to pre-order his novels sooner than usual. However, Child is still undecided about whether or not he wants to continue writing them because fans get confused by their brevity and end up giving them bad reviews.
Overall, I had a wonderful time at the book signing. Child is a terrific author and a charming man. Since he lives in NYC, Child always has a book signing in the area. That said, I’ll be sure to stop by in 2013 when the next Reacher novel is invariably released. Whether or not I’ll have finished the remaining 13 books in the series by then is another story.
Lee Child’s 17th Jack Reacher novel, A Wanted Man, was released in various countries around the world today, and it’s coming out in the U.S. on September 11. I’ll be in New York the day it’s released to meet Lee Child and hear him talk about his new book. Speaking of which, below is a taste of what’s in store for Jack Reacher.
Official Description:
When you’re as big and rough as Jack Reacher and you have a badly-set, freshly-busted nose, patched with silver duct tape it isn’t easy to hitch a ride. But Reacher has some unfinished business in Virginia thanks to the intriguing voice of a woman he’s only met via phone, so he doesn’t quit. He’s picked up by three strangers, two men and one woman. But within minutes it becomes clear they’re all lying—about everything—and then they run into a police roadblock on the highway. There has been an incident, and the cops are looking for the bad guys.
Will they get through because the three are innocent or because the three are now four?
Is Reacher just a decoy?
This past year I started reading Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels for the first time. I’ve only completed two so far, Killing Floor and Die Trying, but I can already see why readers have fallen in love with the Jack Reacher character. He’s a no-nonsense kind of guy that regularly gets himself, and others, out of difficult situations by calling on his military experience, brute strength and intellect.
This series started in 1997 and has grown to 16 books since then, with the 17th, A Wanted Man, being released in September. It’s become so popular that Jack Reacher will soon be appearing on the silver screen in a major, Hollywood film appropriately titled Jack Reacher.
However, the release of this film has caused an uproar among “Reacher’s Creatures” because Tom Cruise is slated to play Jack Reacher. For those of you that don’t know, Jack Reacher is 6′ 5″ tall, between 210 and 250 pounds and has dirty blond hair. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as tall, heavy or blond. Needless to say, many of Lee Child’s faithful readers are upset.
As for me, I’m going to give Tom Cruise the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t think Daniel Craig could be James Bond because he didn’t look the part, but he made a fool out of me. So, I’m more than willing to give Tom Cruise One Shot.
Do you think Tom Cruise can pull off being Reacher? Check out the trailer below and cast your vote in the poll to let me know.