I have enjoyed the adventures of Jack Reacher in Mr Grant's stories. Since then, I have been reading Mark Twain's 'The Innocents Abroad' - and find (apart from taking cognizance of the fact that it was written in 1867, a time when it would appear that people looked for an accumulation of words) I still had to skim pages to keep the action moving - so to speak; and he was not the worst culprit in this respect, not by a long shot - just read Anthony Trollope's 'The Way We Live Now'.

Anyway, the point I am making, is that Grant, Twain and Trollope all go heavy on 'painting the scenery' so to speak. Grant seems intent on giving you the accurate detail of every 'diner' his hero steps into, of every type of car, of every motel interior. The other two authors do something similar - way back in time.  So, is there a general point here to be aware of, if you are a would-be writer? Nowadays, must the depiction cover everything, rather than picking out the 'special detail' that most advice directs the writer towards?

[A thought - Does Grant provide the same detail with regard to the human beings involved? Now there's a thing!]

What must be remembered is that these three authors were/are very popular and sold/sell an awful lot of books. Are today's readers, in particular, so habituated by film, TV and the rest of the visual world that they must have this sort of general, as well as every particular, background detail depicted?