33: Killing Floor

A book by Lee Child

I wrote a few months ago about the joy of finding inscriptions inside second-hand books. How fun it can be to speculate about the people who previously owned them based on the messages and doodles inside. My copy of Lee Child's Killing Floor, which I bought from my local charity shop, doesn't have a message inside it, but it does have a scribble on the title page. A phone number with a Barnsley area code. So I rang it!*

Barnsley Number: Hello, Barnsley 771---

Rory Marsden: Oh, hi there. Who's this?

BN: What d'you mean, who's this?! Who's this?

RM: Sorry, of course. My name's Rory, I wanted to talk to you about Lee Child.

BN: Lee Child...No, there's no Lee here.

RM: Sorry no, I didn't mean I'm looking for Lee Child. I want to talk about Lee Child. Specifically his book Killing Floor, the first in his seminal Jack Reacher series. Released in 1997. Did you know Lee Child's real name is actually James Grant and he's from Coventry? What did you say your name was?

BN: I didn't. It's David Crick. And I'm sorry, but I'm sure I've never heard of Lee Child. Are you sure you've got the right number?

RM: Yes, yes. I found it written in the front of my copy of Killing Floor, which I bought in Tooting in south London. How good is that?! Your Barnsley phone number inside a book about a fictional American ex-military policeman by a guy from Coventry that I found in a Tooting charity shop. You ever read any Lee Child?

DC: No.

RM: Ah, you must, Davey boy—can I call you Davey boy?—they're bloody brilliant. Or, at least, Killing Floor is. I've not read any others yet. You see, the books I'd been reading before I got to Killing Floor were all a bit...serious. Maybe even a touch worthy. And very non-fiction-ey. I was keen for a bit of a palette cleanse. I wanted a thriller. And I don't mind telling you, I found one and then some. It's so good.

DC: I'd prefer it if you didn't call me Davey boy, if it's all the same to you.

RM: You see, it starts in a pretty high gear and then just cranks up and up and up. Check this out. Chapter 1, first line: "I was arrested in Eno's diner." Bang, straight in there. "At twelve o'clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch." Cheers Lee, great detail. How about a sentence longer than seven words? "I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain." There you go.

DC: Is this some kind of sales call?

RM: Basically, Reacher decides to get off his Greyhound bus at an insignificant town in Georgia because of a half-remembered recommendation about a blues musician called Blind Blake. He quickly gets arrested for murder and beats the living daylights out of some white supremacists who try to kill him in prison—a passage which includes this gem of a line about head-butting one of them: "It must have caved his whole face in." Duly acquitted of the murder, Reacher joins the investigation, which uncovers a whole heap of corruption in the town.

DC: Why are you still talking?

RM: Maybe a better question, Dave, is why are you still listening? Because you're intrigued, right? Who wouldn't be? Let me just give you one more snippet from about halfway through: "I turned my attention back to the box. It was empty apart from a box of bullets and a gun." WTF! In what world could a box with a gun and some bullets in it be described as empty? If it said: "The box was empty apart from a receipt for a gun and a box of bullets," then maybe. But that box is decidedly flippin' full.

DC: Seriously. What on earth are you on about? And how did you get this number?

RM: I told you, D-man, I found it scribbled in the front of the book. I thought if I rang the number it might open up some kind of Reacher-esque mystery that I could then turn into my own book that sold millions. I mean, Child's got to run out of ideas soon, surely. The guy's released a Reacher book every year since '97—two in 2010. He's a machine. And I heard in an interview once that he writes without any plan, or even any idea what's going to happen. He just sits down and writes words, and some time later another barnstorming, head-banging, heart-stopping, stay-up-till-three-in-the-morning-cos-you-just-can't-stop-reading howitzer of a book is ready to go. What a legend.

DC: I'm going to hang up now. Please don't call here again.

RM: Not to worry, DC, I won't. This hasn't exactly gone as planned. I was vaguely hoping for a lifelong friend. But you've been very patient with me and I appreciate that a lot. In fact, it's really great, because I've now basically got my blog about Killing Floor written for me. But anyway, have a cracking day. And do read Killing Floor if you get the chance. You won't regret it.

*This didn't happen.