Sometimes books are just entertainment. Jack Reacher, for instance. I don't think Lee Child means any of the 20-odd titles in his addictive series to exercise the reader's mind beyond the point where we try to kid ourselves we know more about what's going on than Reacher himself. They're a great read, and I can't wait for enough time to open up in my life to enable me to pick up Night School. But I read them, enjoy them, and move on to the next.
Likewise, I don't think Reginald Hill meant most of his early work to carry any deep message. I recently read Red Christmas (he was calling himself Patrick Ruell at the time, in case you're moved to go in search of it), a mere 60,000 words long, discovered by my lovely daughter somewhere in the depths of the internet. Most of the early work by the immortal Reg (don't we just wish that were true?) is out of print now, but it's out there if you know where to look, and happily Meriel does. The book was plain unashamed fun: a bunch of people holed up in a snowbound hotel for some Christmas jollity, but some of them aren't quite what they seem...
The plot of Red Christmas is one that doesn't date, and the writing and characters are as fresh as they ever were, but the book came out a long, long time ago. More recently published were Pendulum by Adam Hamdy, featuring a man whom no one believes when he insists he is a murderer's target; Coffin Road, by Peter May, in which another man wakes up to find his memory of recent events, including his own identity, completely gone; and Money Tree, by Gordon Ferris, which features a well-known journalist, disillusioned and heading down the slippery slope to alcoholism, until a whistle-blower throws down an explosive gauntlet.
These were a rather different kettle of herring from either the Reachers or those early Reginald Hills. All, on the face of it, are the stuff of riproaring high-octane thrillers, and indeed that's what they are on the surface. But under all the fast-pace action and crash-bang-wallop, they all have something to say. Something that matters. Something people really ought to be listening to.
I've often said that for me one purpose of fiction is to explore important truths, and present them in a way that makes readers think about them and get a discussion going. The entertainment factor is vital, of course; that's what draws readers in and makes them stay with the story long enough for the idea at the heart of it to reveal itself. The three books listed above are packed full of entertainment: nailbiting mystery, chases by car and other means, an occasional great sex scene (though not enough of that to be a distraction), bad guys popping up out of nowhere pulling guns and knives. All the ingredients a fan of good thrillers could ask for, in fact. But more besides. A lot more.
I can't reveal the nature of the whistle that's being blown in two of the three, because it would give the ending away; suffice to say in each case it's an issue that affects us all, and if the world doesn't start to listen soon, it will begin to head down a very steep and slippery slope with sharp rocks and boiling seas at the bottom. The theme of the third is pretty clear from the outset, so no harm is done if I say it tells us a few uncomfortable things about the international banking system.
I think what I like most about this kind of book is the way it shows writers, even (or maybe especially) writers of so called 'popular' and 'commercial' fiction to be thoughtful people with a care for the way the world works. (We knew that anyway, right?) And since that kind of fiction mostly seems to garner more readers than the more earnest literary kind, it would be good to think that the truths being perpetuated are reaching a large audience. And since change happens one step at a time, and it takes one person to take that one step, maybe we readers are making our own contribution, simply by picking up a good book.
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