Colleen, I go to the library a lot also~~~I do not mind 2bucks for a book~~I will read them, then take them to my senior center where someone else will get pleasure from them;)

I like them a lot. I'm always in the middle of one and have 2 to 4 others on deck and ready to go. My pace is about 3-4 books a month, depending on the length of the books. Real long ones can take several weeks. I listen when exercising, on solo drives of >15 minutes, and (less frequently) on plane flights. I'm pretty indifferent who the reader is or how good or bad they are. Author and content are much more important to me. I abandon maybe one out of every five books I start, always because of the story or writing style. I can't remember once doing so because of the narrator. I'm not sure how one could say one particular reader "is Jack Reacher". As I recall, all or almost all the Reacher books are written in the third person, so the written words being spoken belong to a narrator, not the character, except for direct quotes.

I am just about in the middle of Jodi Picoult's "Handle With Care". I really like her books, she is very good at what she does, shows how everyday people handle life altering situations. I always feel like I've learned something, too. Joan Eileen, you might also like "The Nightingale" by Kristen Hannah. It also takes place in France during World War II. She is another of my favorite authors, I've read a number of her books, including "True Colors" . I thought it was the best yet until I read "The Nightingale" , it has far surpassed any previous book. In my humble opinion, anyway. Rusty

Lawrence Sanders has a series of books featuring his gad-fly detective Archie McNally, they are dated now, Sanders died in 1998, but they are funny and easy reading, def fall into the "pre-cell phones" genre. Bonus: many are available at thrift shops and other cheap places to get good reads. J.A. Jance, her series is set in Arizona and pretty good as well (definitely not as funny as Sanders tho). Some are pre-cell, some newer. Ditto on the thrift shop option. Carl Hiaasen, his novels aren't a series per se, but contain some recurring characters, as a bonus, he skewers South Florida and its denizens, capturing it perfectly (I traveled there quite often in the day, and know it well). TBH his earlier book are the funniest, but I read everything he writes, I appreciate his wit and humor. Some pre-cell, some newer. Joseph Wambaugh, a retired cop, who has written some really good, and funny, crime books (yeah, humor is very important to me), all pre-cell, I think. David Simon and Ed Burns, the creative duo who brought us the Earth's best TV show, The Wire, are both authors of true crime books, tho not necessarily whodunits, more like sprawling, sad, true-to-life stories, just like their TV shows.