Writers Who Don’t Write

A Little Rant

It’s happened frequently. A writer gets popular. Then too popular. And stops writing.

I don’t mean he goes off and enjoys the fruits of his labour. Playing golf. Sailing. Travelling. Boinking girls who are way too young for him. Although he probably does that too. And that’s okay. I’ll miss their writing, but okay, you have to enjoy life right?

No. They do something worse. Something so egregious that, to quote the words Pelham Grenville Wodehouse put behind the impenetrable beard of Vladimir Brusiloff, “I spit me of zem all.”

It’s not that his name disappears and he becomes the forgotten man.

Oh no. It’s not that he stops writing.

And what does he do?

He get other people to write books using his name.

James Patterson comes to mind. Clive Cussler. Vince Flynn ( who can’t help it poor chap and to be fair, Kyle Mills is doing a fair job). But the guys who really gets me is Lee Child.

Okay fair admission. Lee Child is one of my guilty pleasures. I absolutely adore is large, super-intelligent, ‘Sherlock Homeless’ hero, Jack Reacher.

I admire his ruthlessness. I admire his absolutely lack of conscience when it comes to disposing of human trash. I love how he wanders around the United States sorting out problems when he sees them. Fighting for the underdog All the things millions of reader love is my guess.

I absolutely hated the movies when tiny Tom Cruise took on the role of Reacher. Horrifically bad.

But now there is something even more sacrilegious.

Lee has his brother doing his writing for him. Bloke who has written his own books under his own name: Andrew Grant. Unfortunately, Andrew doesn’t like gratuitous killing. Even of villains. Even in books.

But, Andrew . . . darling . . . Reacher is known for gratuitous killing. Of known villains. To quote your revered brother, ‘he was pretty inflexible about that.’ In their latest ‘collaboration,’ while Lee was off doing what he always wanted to do: fiddle about writing for television, Andrew did some perfectly dreadful things to Reacher. In one instance, instead of putting a large and unpleasant villain out of commission in a terminal fashion, he lets him live.

This results in all sorts of complications later, leading to reasonably tight spot. But Andrew!

That’s not Reacher!

Don’t you get it mate? Reacher walks into a pawn broker’s shop and when the man pulls a gun on him breaks his arms and takes the guns. Yup. Gratuitous.

When some second-string American Football players — large fellas the lot of them — try to take him on, they are taken out of the equation. Not permanently in that case, but with injuries that will leave them unable to take part of any festivities, now or in the future.

Or do you remember the Albanians in the anonymous city? Not a soul left. Suddenly the city is crime-free.

Anyway, the sum of all this. That does it. Any books purportedly written by Lee Child and Andrew Grant will never sully my sight again. Sorry Lee, old boy. Your brother aint your match as a writer. He doesn’t write like you and he’s trying to make Reacher kinder and gentler.

A kinder and gentler Reacher? Nope. It’s a contradiction in terms.

So, although you won’t miss it I’m sure, you won’t get any share of the commision when I buy a book. It’s my solitary protest against this entire concept of getting somebody else to do the writing, while you put your name on the book to sell more copies.

Pity poor Reacher. He is now just another hero.