There's something about airports that get me in the mood for stories with protagonists who aren't afraid to open up a can of serious whoopass from time to time. I'm not sure what it is, perhaps the myriad aggravations of air travel these days, but for whatever reason I tend to go for a more physical brand of thriller before getting on an airplane.  And when the mood for such a book strikes lately, I find myself more and more likely to reach for a Jack Reacher novel.

It's a surprising choice for me on one level because for all his  strengths as a writer, Lee Child's approach to storytelling  isn't my usual cup of tea. The plots are great and the writing is competent enough but I often find his main characters to lack genuine charm (or to be really slow to reveal it), his narrative sometimes excruciatingly detailed, his dialogue repetitious, key story developments at times implausible, and his overall style to lack much of the warmth or humor that normally attracts me to fiction. So why can't I get enough of it? What is it that keeps  me  coming back?

I suppose one thing is the skill with which Mr. Child conceives his intricately layered plots. Most of the Reacher novels I've read start deceptively simple; something dramatic and interesting happens that seems plot-worthy in its own right but often pretty local in terms of impact, affecting what appears to be a small number of people at first.  But sure enough, readers usually soon discover that the implications are far broader then we expected, the stakes are much higher, and there's a lot more on the line. And in his best novels this effect of things going to the next level and then the next happens several times and by the end of the book what seemed like the story of a simple suicide or kidnapping or whatever has morphed into something much more complex, engaging, and ultimately satisfying.

Phrases  like 'page turning', 'nailbiting' and 'edge of your seat suspense' get thrown around pretty casually in connection to mega-selling authors like Lee Child, but for me he's a guy who can in his Jack Reacher series be counted on to deliver the goods. Reacher may not be a deep character but he's likable enough, so often fighting a good fight, taking on a noble cause of some sort  at great risk to himself for little or no reward other than the satisfaction of doing what's right, then moving on. (And getting a few well-deserved licks in on the bad guys.)

Sure, aspects of Reacher are far from original and the success of his against-all-odds heroism sometimes comes about in somewhat improbable ways.  (He's a remarkably lucky guy, I'll say that for him.) But despite the slew of things that always seem to go his way or hunches that prove dead-on in his pursuit of whatever he's after Reacher has a good mind and smart reasoning. Child does a great job getting readers into the head of his lead and seeing things though the eyes of a seasoned, street smart fighter and investigator. And he's smart enough to let Reacher be wrong sometimes and have his bad decisions cost him, which is another thing I like about the series.

Child may have his limits as a stylist, but he's a good plotsmith with a highly capable lead who's just a lot of fun to read about. Jack Reacher reminds me of so many iconic American heroes, be they cowboy, soldier, cop, spy, or even superhero.  There are some cliched elements of the conception of this taciturn, hulking wandering loner of a protagonist, but Lee Child manages to make me forget that with each and every novel of his I read.