Lee Child

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BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: The Enemy: Description:
A stomach-churning, palm-sweating thriller set in the aftermath of the Cold War.

Title: One Shot: Description:
Lee Child's Jack Reacher thrillers always have remarkably inventive setups, and One Shot is true to form. A sniper, Barr, kills five people with six shots and leaves a clear trail of evidence; arrested, he asks for Reacher. When Reacher was a military policeman, politics stopped him pursuing Barr--he cannot understand why Barr would ask for him and Barr has been beaten in jail until he cannot remember himself. Yet, for Reacher, the loner who looks at things differently from civilians, the story does not add up--Barr should not have got himself caught, should not even have fired from where he did. Child is a master of the perverse solution to the set of questions no-one ever asked in quite that way before, and the macho yet sensitive Reacher is one of the more interesting series characters in thrillers. One Shot is a smart set of puzzles which strings the reader along to false conclusions and a sense of real danger. It also, like its hero, has a heart. --Roz Kaveney

Title: Killing Floor: Description:
Thriller set in US jailhouse.

Title: Tripwire (a Jack Reacher Novel): Description:
Ex-military policemen Jack Reacher is lying low in Key West, digging up swimming pools by hand. He is not best pleased when a private detective starts asking questions about him, but when the detective, Costello, turns up dead with his fingertips sliced off, Reacher realises it is time to move on. Soon (as in Child's two previous excellent thrillers Die Trying and Killing Floor) Reacher is up to his neck in lethal trouble involving a vicious Wall Street manipulator, a mysterious woman (of course) and the livelihood of a whole community. Even the fate of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam is stirred into the brew. But this is not a book by one of the new breed of US thriller writers: Child prides himself that, as an Englishman, he writes American thrillers that are utterly convincing in milieu and toughness of action, without a trace of English sensibility. This new one is no exception-- every bit as lean and compulsive as its predecessors, it also builds on the freshest aspect of those books: Reacher may be a tough, epic hero, but he always remains human and vulnerable. Here's one for that long plane or train journey. --Barry Forshaw

Title: The Enemy: Description:
Lee Child is a quiet, undemonstrative man who is phlegmatic about his success in the thriller field. The Enemy will no doubt attract the usual enthusiastic acclaim, and it deserves to. One thing that is guaranteed to please Child is the open-mouthed astonishment of American readers who learn that this writer of the most idiomatic American thrillers (with brilliantly realised US locales) is actually English. But there's never a sense of striving for effects in such taut Child novels as Killing Floor and Die Trying. Child simply delivers the goods, US-style--and The Enemy is no exception. Child's usual protagonist, the tough and resourceful Jack Reacher, is in North Carolina on New Year's Day, 1990. Elsewhere, world-shaking events are underway, such as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. But Jack's job as a Military Police Duty Officer has him concerned with what initially seem to be less significant happenings: a soldier has been found dead in a sleazy motel and when Jack goes to the house of the soldier (a two-star general) to inform his wife, he finds her also dead. Needless to say, events in another part of the globe are having fatal repercussions in the US, and Reacher is soon up to his neck, with the body count rising. As a glimpse into the early life of Jack Reacher (now securely one of the most admired heroes in contemporary thriller writing), this is meat and drink to the Child aficionado. Child foregrounds characterisation in his pacy narratives, and this eighth outing for Jack has all the adrenalin-producing qualities of its predecessors. --Barry Forshaw

Title: One Shot: Description:
Lee Child's Jack Reacher thrillers always have remarkably inventive setups, and One Shot is true to form. A sniper, Barr, kills five people with six shots and leaves a clear trail of evidence; arrested, he asks for Reacher. When Reacher was a military policeman, politics stopped him pursuing Barr--he cannot understand why Barr would ask for him and Barr has been beaten in jail until he cannot remember himself. Yet, for Reacher, the loner who looks at things differently from civilians, the story does not add up--Barr should not have got himself caught, should not even have fired from where he did. Child is a master of the perverse solution to the set of questions no-one ever asked in quite that way before, and the macho yet sensitive Reacher is one of the more interesting series characters in thrillers. One Shot is a smart set of puzzles which strings the reader along to false conclusions and a sense of real danger. It also, like its hero, has a heart. --Roz Kaveney

Title: Die Trying: Description:
Jack Reacher meets an attractive woman struggling along a Chicago street with her crutches. He stops to offer a steadying arm, and then they both turn to face twin handguns aimed at them. Reacher and the woman - who claims to be an FBI agent - are kidnapped and taken 2000 miles across America.

Title: Persuader: Description:
Breakneck in its pace, uncompromising in its narrative ruthlessness, Persuader is typical of Lee Child's Jack Reacher adventures. After a first chapter that misdirects the reader quite staggeringly, ex-army freelance adventurer Reacher is apparently on the run. As always with Child and Reacher, what we see at first is only a small part of the complex plotting lying underneath. Reacher has his own reasons for taking on this case, reasons that are very personal and go back a decade. Being Reacher, tough with a heart of gold, his emotions--his liking for a drug dealer's wife and son, his more than professional interest in the DEA officer investigating them, his dislike of steroid-crazed thug Paulie--soon complicate his objectives. Childs is endlessly reliable on gadgets--the miniaturised e-mail senders, the big guns--and on action sequences--various fights and a swim in a riptide; he also makes us believe in complex emotions and deeper feelings than a love of violence. This is not one of the best of the Reacher books--it has too many flashbacks and a shadowy villain--but like all of them it is an action thriller for intelligent readers. --Roz Kaveney

Title: One Shot: Description:
Lee Child's Jack Reacher thrillers always have remarkably inventive setups, and One Shot is true to form. A sniper, Barr, kills five people with six shots and leaves a clear trail of evidence; arrested, he asks for Reacher. When Reacher was a military policeman, politics stopped him pursuing Barr--he cannot understand why Barr would ask for him and Barr has been beaten in jail until he cannot remember himself. Yet, for Reacher, the loner who looks at things differently from civilians, the story does not add up--Barr should not have got himself caught, should not even have fired from where he did. Child is a master of the perverse solution to the set of questions no-one ever asked in quite that way before, and the macho yet sensitive Reacher is one of the more interesting series characters in thrillers. One Shot is a smart set of puzzles which strings the reader along to false conclusions and a sense of real danger. It also, like its hero, has a heart. --Roz Kaveney

Title: The Visitor (a Jack Reacher Novel): Description:
Before Lee Child's Jack Reacher became a wanderer, stumbling into desperate situations and sorting them out with his two fists and sharp brain, he used his skill for the US Army's military police. When he is accused of a series of killings--women who left the army after sexual harassment proceedings found with their hearts stopped in baths full of camouflage paint--he has to use his skills to clear his name, and to do the Army and FBI's work for them. The near-impossible perfection of Reacher's physique and brain are met here by a puzzle that almost meets the same standard of perfection--the reason he is suspected is simply that perfect detectives are handy patsies for perfect murders, and Reacher is, besides, a man whom those in authority find making them itch..."As a rule, the Bureau and the military don't get along too well.""Well, there's a big surprise. Who the hell do you guys gel along with."..."You know how it is. Military hates the Bureau, the Bureau hates CIA, everybody hates everybody else...So we need a go-between." Reacher shrugged."I don't know anybody like that. I've been out too long."Lee Child's remorselessly perverse ingenuity is working overtime in this, his fourth book, though like most great puzzles or tricks, his secrets depend a little heavily on mere misdirection. A book this driven by the central character's laconic aggression ought not to be quite as smart as this is, or quite as likeable--Lee Child's clever formula is to make that paradox work. --Roz Kaveney

Title: Echo Burning (a Jack Reacher Novel): Description:
There was a time when a US-set crime novel by a British writer (such as James Hadley Chase's No Orchids For Miss Blandish) could get away with a certain carelessness in local detail. Not any more. Since the Englishman Lee Child began writing his superbly authentic novels, few readers on either side of the Atlantic would accept anything other than the gritty authenticity of books such as Child's latest, Echo Burning. He prides himself on the plausibility of his settings and characters, and actually has a more striking sense of the American landscape that many native writers. He never allows the reader to forget just where his hero Jack Reacher is, what he's feeling, smelling, seeing. And Reacher has slowly but surely become one of the most fully rounded protagonists in thriller fiction. It's hardly surprising that the novels have been optioned for filming; what is surprising is the fact that it hasn't happened before. Jack finds himself suffering the intense heat of a Texas summer, and (leaving behind a messy situation) hardly worries about the dangers of who will pick him up when he hitches a ride. But it's a beautiful young rich girl driving a Cadillac who gives Jack a lift. Carmen tells him she has a little girl who is being observed by unseen and sinister forces. And her brutal, abusive jailed husband is more than likely to kill her when he gets out. It's obviously highly inadvisable for Jack to travel to Carmen's remote ranch in Echo County and become involved in her problems, but (needless to say) he does just that. And he's soon encountering lies, lust and prejudice, with untrustworthy cops and lawyers absolutely no help. Jack finally realises that there is only one way to resolve this lethal situation. As always with Child, the narrative rattles along with real élan, and the sultry characterisation keeps everything ruthlessly on track. --Barry Forshaw

Title: Without Fail (a Jack Reacher Novel): Description:
Jack Reacher walks alone. No job, no ID, no last known address. But he never turns down a plea for help. Now a woman tracks him down, because she needs a hand with her new job. Her task? Protecting the Vice President of the United States from someone threatening to kill him. And so Reacher, with nothing but his toothbrush and the clothes he stands up in, enters a very exclusive club at the very heart of Washington power: the offices of the United States Secret Service. Here, he must literally put himself in the line of fire, pitting his native cunning, surly charm and instinctive but controlled violence against the wiliness of bureaucrats and the ghosts from his own past - as well as the brutal ruthlessness of the mystery assassin. From the Publisher Jack Reacher is back: this time, he's put in the line of fire. From the Back Cover Jack Reacher walks alone. No job, no ID, no last known address. But he never turns down a plea for help. Now a woman tracks him down, because she needs a hand with her new job. Her task? Protecting the Vice President of the United States. From someone threatening to kill him. And so Reacher, with nothing but his toothbrush and the clothes he stands up in, enters a very exclusive club at the very heart of Washington power: the offices of the United States Secret Service. Here he must literally put himself in the line of fire, pitting his native cunning, surly charm and instinctive but controlled violence against the wiliness of bureaucrats and the ghosts from his own past - as well as the brutal ruthlessness of the mystery assassin. About the Author LEE CHILD is British, but after he was made redundant from his job in television, he moved with his family from Cumbria to the United States to start a new career as a writer of American thrillers. He now divides his time between France and New York. All his novels feature the maverick Jack Reacher, and all have been international bestsellers. Excerpted from Without Fail by Lee Child. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren’t ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.They used their usual method to get past security and set up a hundred feet from where he was speaking. They used a silencer and missed him by an inch. The bullet must have passed right over his head. Maybe even through his hair, because he immediately raised his hand and patted it back into place as if a gust of wind had disturbed it. They saw it over and over again, afterwards, on television. He raised his hand and patted his hair. He did nothing else. He just kept on with his speech, unaware, because by definition a silenced bullet is too fast to see and too quiet to hear. So it missed him and flew on. It missed everybody standing behind him. It struck no obstacles, hit no buildings. It flew on straight and true until its energy was spent and gravity hauled it to earth in the far distance where there was nothing except empty grassland. There was no response. No reaction. Nobody noticed. It was like the bullet had never been fired at all. They didn’t fire again. They were too shaken up. So, a failure, but a miracle. And a lesson. They spent October acting like the professionals they were, starting over, calming down, thinking, learning, preparing for their second attempt. It would be a better attempt, carefully planned and properly executed, built around technique and nuance and sophistication, and enhanced by unholy fear. A worthy attempt. A creative attempt. Above all, an attempt that wouldn’t fail. Then November came, and the rules changed completely. Reacher’s cup was empty but still warm. He lifted it off the saucer and tilted it and watched the sludge in the bottom flow towards him, slow and brown, like river silt. ‘When does it need to be done?’ he asked. ‘As soon as possible,’ she said. He nodded. Slid out of the booth and stood up. ‘I’ll call you in ten days,’ he said. ‘With a decision?’ He shook his head. ‘To tell you how it went.’ ‘I’ll know how it went.’ ‘OK, to tell you where to send my money.’ She closed her eyes and smiled. He glanced down at her. ‘You thought I’d refuse?’ he said. She opened her eyes. ‘I thought you might be a little harder to persuade.’ He shrugged. ‘Like Joe told you, I’m a sucker for a challenge. Joe was usually right about things like that. He was usually right about a lot of things.’ ‘Now I don’t know what to say, except thank you.’ He didn’t reply. Just started to move away, but she stood up right next to him and kept him where he was. There was an awkward pause. They stood for a second face to face, trapped by the table. She put out her hand and he shook it. She held on a fraction too long, and then she stretched up tall and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were soft. Their touch burned him like a tiny voltage. ‘A handshake isn’t enough,’ she said. ‘You’re going to do it for us.’ Then she paused. ‘And you were nearly my brother-in-law.’ He said nothing. Just nodded and shuffled out from behind the table and glanced back once. Then he headed up the stairs and out to the street. Her perfume was on his hand. He walked around to the cabaret lounge and left a note for his friends in their dressing room. Then he headed out to the highway, with ten whole days to find a way to kill the fourth-best-protected person on the planet. It had started eight hours earlier, like this: team leader M. E. Froelich came to work on that Monday morning, thirteen days after the election, an hour before the second strategy meeting, seven days after the word assassination had first been used, and made her final decision. She set off in search of her immediate superior and found him in the secretarial pen outside his office, clearly on his way to somewhere else, clearly in a hurry. He had a file under his arm and a definite stay back expression on his face. But she took a deep breath and made it clear that she needed to talk right then. Urgently. And off the record and in private, obviously. So he paused a moment and turned abruptly and went back inside his office. He let her step in after him and closed the door behind her, softly enough to make the unscheduled meeting feel a little conspiratorial, but firmly enough to leave her in no doubt he was annoyed about the interruption to his routine. It was just the click of! a door latch, but it was also an unmistakable message, parsed exactly in the language of office hierarchies everywhere: you better not be wasting my time with this. He was a twenty-five-year veteran well into his final lap before retirement, well into his middle fifties, the last echo of the old days. He was still tall, still fairly lean and athletic, but greying fast and softening in some of the wrong places. His name was Stuyvesant. Like the last Director-General of New Amsterdam, he would say when the spelling was questioned. Then, acknowledging the modern world, he would say: like the cigarette. He wore Brooks Brothers every day of his life without exception, but he was considered capable of flexibility in his tactics. Best of all, he had never failed. Not ever, and he had been around a long time, with more than his fair share of difficulties. But there had been no failures, and no bad luck, either. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Title: The Hard Way: Description:
Late at night, in a New York cafe, Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china. He owns nothing, carries less. He has never met a woman who said no or a case he couldn't solve. But now Reacher faces a new case so disturbing that the truth eludes him. He has to sweat the details and work the clues.

Title: The Hard Way: Description:
Late at night, in a New York cafe, Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china. So he can move on at a moment's notice. He owns nothing, carries less. He has never met a woman who said no or a case he couldn't solve. But now Reacher faces a new case so disturbing that the truth eludes him. He has to sweat the details and work the clues. Doing it the hard way, until what started on a busy New York street explodes three thousand miles away, in the sleepy English countryside. With Reacher striding alone in the shadows, armed and dangerous. From the Publisher Reacher comes to the UK! Dangerous, sexy and invincible. From the Inside Flap Jack Reacher. Soldier. Loner. Hero. Lover. Late at night, a New York café. Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china. So he can move on at a moment’s notice. He owns nothing, carries less. He has never met a woman who said no. Or a case he couldn’t solve. But now Reacher faces a new case so disturbing that the truth eludes him. Has he painted targets on the good guys’ backs? So Reacher starts over at square one. Sweats the details and works the clues.Doing it the hard way, as they used to say back in the service. Until what started on a busy New York street explodes three thousand miles away, in the sleepy English countryside. With Reacher striding alone in the shadows. Armed and dangerous. Invincible. From the Back Cover Jack Reacher.Soldier. Loner.Hero. Lover. ‘The invicible Reacher is as irresistible as ever.’ Sunday Telegraph Late at night, a New York café. Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china.Sohe can move on at a moment’s notice.He owns nothing, carries less. He has never met a woman who said no.Or a case he couldn’t solve. But now Reacher faces a new case so disturbing that the truth eludes him. He has to sweat the details and work the clues.Doing it the hard way. Until what started on a busy New York street explodes three thousand miles away, in the sleepy English countryside.WithReacher striding alone in the shadows.Armed and dangerous. ‘The rough, tough Superman of the crime-busting genre, as smart and charismatic as he is unbeatable.’ New York Times ‘Possibly the British author’s best yet.’ Daily Mirror About the Author Lee Child:LEE CHILD is British, but after he was made redundant from his job in television, he moved with his family from Cumbria to the United States to start a new career as a writer of American thrillers. He now divides his time between France and New York. All his novels feature the maverick Jack Reacher, and all have been international bestsellers.

Title: Bad Luck And Trouble: Description:
September 11 changed Jack Reacher's drifter lifestyle in one practical way. As well as his folding toothbrush, he now carries photo ID. Yet he is still as close to untraceable as a human being in America can get. So when a member of his old Army unit finds a way to get a message to him, he knows it must be deadly serious: I want you to put the old unit back together. You do not mess with the Special Investigators. The always watched each other's backs. Now one of them has shown up dead in the California desert. And six others can't be found at all. You do not mess with Jack Reacher. His old buddies are in big trouble and he won't let that go. Not now, not ever.

Title: Bad Luck And Trouble: Description:
You do not mess with the Special Investigators! The events of 9/11 changed Jack Reacher's drifter life in a practical way. In addition to his folding toothbrush, he now needs to carry photo ID to get around. Yet he is still as close to untraceable as a human being in America can get. So when a member of his old Army unit manages to get a message to him, he knows it has to be deadly serious. The Special Investigators always watched each other's backs. Now Reacher must put the old unit back together. Someone has killed one of them, and he can't let that go. From the Publisher You do not mess with Reacher in Lee Child’s irresistible new bestseller. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. From the Inside Flap YOU DO NOT MESS WITH JACK REACHER September 11th changed Reacher’s drifter lifestyle in one practical way. As well as his folding toothbrush, he now carries photo ID.Yet he is still as close to untraceable as a human being in America can get.So when a member of his old Army unit finds a way to get a message to him, he knows it must be deadly serious: I want you to put the old unit back together. You do not mess with the Special Investigators. They always watched each other’s backs. Now one of them has shown up dead in the California desert. And six others can’t be found at all. You do not mess with Jack Reacher. His old buddies are in big trouble, and he won’t let that go.Not now, not ever. From the Back Cover The Hard Way: ‘The invincible Reacher is as irresistible as ever.’ Sunday Telegraph ‘Reacher, who has long since gained mythical status, is human after all…This is storytelling of the highest order: lean, laconic, laced with tension.’Evening Standard ‘Possibly the British author’s best yet.’ Daily Mirror ‘Expect to find a little humor, a little sex, and the best action scenes in the business ... a straight-ahead, high-octane thriller ... one of the most reliable contemporary thriller writers.’ Philadelphia Inquirer ‘That rare kind of action hero … The twists and turns of the plot grab you by the scruff of the neck and refuse to let you go … gripping, page-turning stuff.’Yorkshire Evening Post About the Author Lee Child: Lee Child is British, but after he was made redundant from his job in television, he moved with his family from Cumbria to the United States to start a new career as a writer of American thrillers. He now divides his time between France and New York. All his novels feature the maverick Jack Reacher, and all have been international bestsellers.

Title: Bad Luck And Trouble: Description:
You do not mess with the Special Investigators! The events of 9/11 changed Jack Reacher's drifter life in a practical way. In addition to his folding toothbrush, he now needs to carry photo ID to get around. Yet he is still as close to untraceable as a human being in America can get. So when a member of his old Army unit manages to get a message to him, he knows it has to be deadly serious. The Special Investigators always watched each other's backs. Now Reacher must put the old unit back together. Someone has killed one of them, and he can't let that go.

Title: Nothing To Lose: Description:
In Jack Reacher's whiz-bang latest (Bad Luck and Trouble, 2007, etc.), small-town cops bust him for vagrancy - big mistake!Despair, Colo.: population 2,692, and none of them with the sense they were born with. Because Reacher warned them, nobody can say he didn't. There he was, just passing through, seated harmlessly at the restaurant table, wanting only a cup of coffee, when the four deputies, "each a useful size," appeared in the doorway, clearly intent on seeing the back of him. Says Reacher to the restaurant's surly proprietor, " 'If I get a cup of coffee I'll walk out of here. If I don't get a cup of coffee, these guys can try to throw me out, and you'll spend the rest of the day cleaning blood off the floor ' " Broken bones ensue - none of them Reacher's - but when a riot gun is added to the argument, Reacher allows himself to be arrested. The fact is his curiosity - ever a major component in the Reacher persona - requires that he stick around until he uncovers the something he suspects is rotten in Despair. Enter the lady deputy sheriff from Hope, the tiny town that borders Despair. Hope, of course, is as attractive as Despair is forbidding. Ditto Deputy Vaughan, who provides another compelling reason for Reacher to bide a bit. They join forces in an investigation that takes a series of twisty turns involving, among others, a buck-chasing religious zealot and some vexatious conspirators in Pentagon corridors of power. Answers garnered, curiosity slaked, Reacher arrives at a critical moment. He must now say to Vaughan, albeit ruefully, what those who know him best always knew was inevitable: " 'I don't do permanent.' "When, single-handedly, Reacher takes out eight huskies in a bar-room brawl, a million plus fans will grin happily, knowing that all's right with the action-lit world. (Kirkus Reviews)