“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” (Jhumpa Lahiri)
So, while this is a blog about books and travel, mostly about fiction in real places, it’s also about being able to travel within a narrative without having to move your feet. And that’s where I found myself recently–unable to travel physically much further than from one side of the sofa to the other.
We’ve followed the guidelines: we’re fully vaccinated and boosted; we wear masks at the grocery store; we keep our distance from other people as far as possible, but still, like so many others, we succumbed to Covid in July. Symptoms were slightly different for each of us, but we were all laid low for a few days. Sick days, like snow days, take us outside of our usual routine, force us outside of time into another realm of reality. So I used the time–when I wasn’t dozing–to reconnect with old friends–Charlie Fox and Sean Meyer, who reside on my bookshelf and in my kindle and audible files.
Charlie and Sean are the products of Zoe Sharp’s imagination. Charlie has fought her way out of disgrace imposed by a brutal, misogynist system to a position of physical and mental strength–personal and professional. She’s astute, compassionate, capable, and laser-focused, characteristics necessary for her career in close protection. Sean is her boss, trainer, lover; they’re in a relationship that is physically intimate but hampered by mis-communication, misunderstandings, and missed opportunities.
As I worked my way through covid, secondary infections, and the overwhelming heat dome of late July, I’ve immersed myself in rereading (or listening to) the 13 book series. The novels are rollicking good fun, written with verbal wit. Like the best of thriller/crime/mystery writing, compelling societal issues are mirrored in the framework of the novels–systemic misogyny, blood diamonds, arms trafficking, the role of women in combat, violence against women, the environment, the pharmacological-government complex.
Sharp creates a strong sense of place in her novels, especially in the novels set in the northwest of England. The places I most enjoy reading about are, of course, the places I’ve visited. She writes about Kirby Lonsdale and Sedbergh in Road Kill. Lancaster and Cumbria feature in Killer Instinct and Riot Act. In Sharp’s other series–Charlie is not the only capable woman to come from Sharp’s imagination–there’s CSI Grace McColl in Cumbria and Blake Fitzroy in Derbyshire.
Charlie’s adventures over the 13-book series carry her far and wide from that scepter’d isle across the States, through the Middle East, central Europe, and Latin America. I will be very sad and alone-feeling when I get to the end of Bad Turn, book 13. I hope I won’t have to wait too much longer to see where Charlie’s next adventure will take me.
Booked for Travel 