Looking for books where characters that generally know what they're doing are confronted by things they don't understand.
I've just finished blazing through Michael Crichton's body of work, and one of the things that struck me about nearly all of his books was the general level of competence his characters show in their respective situations. One might think that having extremely well-educated, prepared, and level-headed characters would make for low tension and easy resolutions, but Crichton uses it to raise the stakes with situations that lesser-prepared characters couldn't handle. I like it when our heroes keep their heads under pressure but struggle or fail anyway…
I also enjoyed learning things about the characters' occupations and specialties through the way they solve problems. Chrichton's "Prey" was a particular favorite, as I felt like I learned a ton about how nanotechnology might function just by following his character. It was clear that the author did their research – problems didn't get solved through flashy fight scenes or generic "badassery", they were solved by the MC knowing a lot about their particular situation and exploiting that knowledge.
If I can be picky for a moment, something that I /don't/ like are heroes that are only good at their work because they are "geniuses" or "prodigies"… I find this pretty unrelatable, and really enjoy seeing the fruits of a long and storied career. I find that these characters are generally more well-developed, anyway.
Any books that follow competent, experienced professionals are welcome, but as I am still riding the high of finishing "CONGO" (highly recommended despite the tremendously bad movie adaptation), I'd appreciate any recs for adventures especially.
TLDR: Very knowledgeable characters, very, very bad situation.
by ClovisJacks