The opening of “The Old Man” with Jeff Bridges as an older gentleman experiencing a home invasion who turns the tables with unexpected hidden talents got me in. The darkness of the imagined scene where he efficiently kills off innocent police officers and his evening’s date just to avoid detection, kept me there. I ended up enjoying the series well enough though I did not necessarily buy all the twists and reveals, but it was those couple of scenes and an assurance from citizen reviewers that the plot of the show and the book were not identical that had me purchase the novel by Thomas Perry.

I can recommend the novel. Solid, mostly well written (though surely one evil hitchhiker picker-upper should be the limit in any story. Unless it is a story about an evil hitchiker picker-upper, like The Hitcher but in reverse), and a bit padded by some not uninteresting but a little odd digressions around the lives of secondary characters (don’t bury a traceable gun in the same place as the bodies, folks, that is a rule), I enjoyed coming back to it each time.

If you are highly competent, it is important that the opportunity arises to use your skills if your life is not to be a waste. In those alternative universes where for whatever reason World War 2 did not come to pass – perhaps childhood polio transformed Hitler into an Austrian FDR whose mittel-europa new deal led the world to prosperity it has never known – Churchill never redeemed himself in his old age pensioner years and if he is remembered, it is only as that racist bloke who stuffed up at Gallipoli. Reading a biography of Sir John Monash who I knew as a great Australian general of WW1, I was struck by what came before – business failures, numerous setbacks, and the Australian depression of the 1890s. Let us hope that many other brilliant people do not get the chance to display their true abilities in a world war.

But I digress. The trope of the former secret agent trying to live a normal life took an enjoyable comedic turn in Bob Odenkirk’s Nobody, and the appeal and daydream attraction is obvious – imagine if that happened but little did they know I could do this. It is the same appeal that it holds for me, I’m not above it. It leads me into strange places though – the first couple of Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger books had me thinking I should become a long distance marksman, though I’ve never used a gun and have little patience for pesky details like windspeed and humidity.

My preference is the highly competent loner, not the highly competent family man (I say as a largely incompetent family man, if I need to use a drill I have to watch a youtube video first). The one’s who mind their own business until trouble comes along, like David Morrell’s Rambo except I thought he probably did need a shower. And I don’t like them to be alcoholics, not because I am judging them, but because I really hate hangovers and don’t like to think about them while I am reading. At least Bob Lee was a recovered alcoholic. So The Old Man was more my speed, except that he let his dogs sleep on his bed, and I don’t like that because when I was a teenager I had a little dog that would sneak into my room when I was asleep and curl into the space behind my knees which sounds cute but it stopped me turning in my sleep and I would wake screaming with cramps in my legs.

But I digress. Thinking back, the examples I really enjoyed were highly competent loners engaged in a cat and mouse chase with enemies with far greater resources, a staple of thrillers these days. The low tech classic I really enjoyed was Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male which I was lucky enough to find at Chester Hill Library after watching the Peter O’Toole movie on TV. The other I really enjoyed from the same era – my reading era, not the years they were written – was Brian Garfield’s Hopscotch (I can picture the rows of books I would haunt at Chester Hill newsagency to see what would be the best buy for the $1.95 I saved up, ignoring the Arthur Hailey’s and T. Lobsang Rampa’s, not even noticing the Harold Robbinseses), a tale of a former CIA agent who does not want to retire, leading the world’s spy agencies on a merry chase, daring them to hunt him down before he can finish his book which is an expose of his government’s dirty laundry. These blokes knew what to do, how to evade the Gestapo, how to fake your death or get a false passport, when I couldn’t even talk to girls.

But I digress. A little unhygienic with the dogs on the beds, but otherwise a good read about a highly competent man who kills bad guys but tries a bit not to kill not-so-bad guys who thinks when he needs to but can just proceed without worrying about everything. Plus he can talk to girls. Wouldn’t that be nice? Not the killing, but knowing what to do most of the time and not be worried so much.

*Sigh* I told you I couldn’t write reviews.