Harry Hole, Dave Robicheaux, and Jack Reacher, the perhaps no so holy trinity of the modern crime/thriller/action genre, three of my favorite figures by three of my favorite authors.

In the coming weeks, I’ll devote an extended post to each, but for today, I’d simply like to comment on some of the aspects that bind them and point out where they diverge.

All three have a history as policemen, Harry and Dave currently, Reacher (he’s never called Jack by his friends) as ex-MP. Harry and Dave are recovering (or not so much) alcoholics, Reacher is more like to OD on coffee. All three share a profound sense of the world as a failed moral university, a place where it is their job to take down the current villains (I think I can count on one hand the number of villains who actually come before the courts). All three live in a temporal world that is set in a place and time, a place and time which is more or less contemporary — Dave experiences Hurricane Katrina, Harry contemporary Oslo, and Reacher America post 9/11.

Where the three differ the most is in the narrative style and tactics taken by their authors, Burke, Child, and Nesbø. For today, let us simply note the following:

• Burke is the most lyrical of the three, particularly in the nature descriptions that are a hallmark of this writing. But Burke is also the most outlandish, incredible, and most demanding of a suspension of disbelief (but also so good, you almost always follow him along willingly)
• Child is the most calculating of the three: the Reacher novels are brilliantly paced, and plotted, and each has a “hook” that pulls the reader along. The strategy of letting the reader inside Reacher’s head as he sorts out his situation is real narrative time is deeply satisfying, and there is nothing that is superfluous. The sense of place is in general only strong enough to set the stage of the resulting action, and action there is in bucketfuls.
• Nesbø’s writing is perhaps the least “remarkable” of the three, but he too can be a very calculating author using narrative misdirection, cliff hangers, and puzzles. Every novel has a thread, occasionally extended, that is unresolved at the novel’s end.

I will come back to each of the three in turn because there is much to appreciate in each.