a b c d Cornwell, Bob. "Lee Child Interview". TwBooks. Archived from the original on 11 July 2015 . Retrieved 1 March 2016. Child, Lee (1999). Killing Floor. He had served thirteen years in the Army, and the only time he was wounded it wasn't with a bullet. It was with a fragment of a Marine sergeant's jawbone. Lee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born. Reacher is also described as a skilled marksman, being the only non- Marine to win the US Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational rifle competition. [23] Habits and beliefs [ edit ] Susan Duffy, appears in Persuader. She is Reacher's accomplice throughout the novel and they have a brief relationship.

Dorothy Coe, a motel maid and long-time enemy of the villains of Worth Dying For, after they were the primary suspects in the disappearance of Dorothy's adopted daughter. He has also referred to Reacher on multiple occasions as a ' knight-errant' [9] [12] and in an interview for Time magazine describes the character as: "(He's) two things in one. On the surface, he is an ex-military cop who is suddenly dumped out into the civilian world. He doesn't fit in, and he spends his time wandering America, seeing the things that he's never had time to see before. He's trying to stay out of trouble, but masterfully once a year getting into trouble. He's also the descendant of a very ancient tradition: the noble loner, the knight errant, the mysterious stranger, who has shown up in stories forever… He is a truly universal character... I'm writing the modern iteration of a character who has existed for thousands of years." [9] She had said, 'You've got the strength of two normal boys. What are you going to do with it?' I hadn't replied. Our silence was part of the ritual. She answered for me. She said, 'You're going to do the right thing.' And I had tried, mostly, which had sometimes caused me trouble, and sometimes won me medals of my own. [37] Skills [ edit ] a b c Child, Lee (April 2005). "Chapter 19". The Enemy. Dell Publishing Company. ISBN 9780440241010. Sargent also notes the dichotomy in Reacher's character, stating that he is intellectual and generous despite his exterior appearance of being "unkempt, unshaven and out of uniform, a loner, avenger, perpetual outsider at odds with the army". In Sargent's express opinion:Second conclusion: If you can see a bandwagon, it’s too late to get on. I think the person who said that to me was talking about investment issues—as if I had anything to invest—but it seemed an excellent motto for entertainment as well. It’s a crowded field. Why do what everyone else is doing?” Martin Cash, an ex-Marine who owns a shooting range. Reacher questions him, and then recruits him as an ally, in One Shot. Robert Duvall plays him in the 2012 film. a b c d e f Child, Lee (2004). "Chapter 6". The Enemy. London: Transworld Publishers. ISBN 0-553-81585-7.

Overview: The #1 New York Times–bestselling author reveals the story behind “one of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes” (The Washington Post). Jodie Garber-Jacob, 30, is the daughter of General Leon Garber. She met and fell in love with Reacher when she was 15 and was off-limits to him. In Tripwire, she is divorced, using her married name, working as a corporate attorney and reunites romantically with him after her father's funeral. She and Reacher lived together in New York City and upstate New York in Leon's house which was left in his will to Reacher, his surrogate son. She is mentioned in Echo Burning as having moved to Europe. She appears in Tripwire, and The Visitor ( Running Blind in the United States). He suffers his first ever broken nose in Worth Dying For, at over 50 years of age. He resets the bone with a thump from his palm and later puts on a plaster bandage made of duct tape. [56] [57] Family [ edit ] a b c d White, Claire (2001). "A Conversation With Lee Child". The Internet Writing Journal . Retrieved 1 March 2016. Did you know that the name Lee Child is actually a pen name? It’s interesting how many authors use pen names. Many more than I realized.WIMBLEDON CUP" (PDF). 12 April 2022. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 April 2022 . Retrieved 4 January 2023. I really enjoyed working with Cruise. He's a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun. But ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it's a big component of who he is...So what I've decided to do is – there won't be any more movies with Tom Cruise. Instead, we're going to take it to Netflix or something like that. Long-form streaming television, with a completely new actor. We're rebooting and starting over and we're going to try and find the perfect guy. [78] While making an analogy in The Affair, Reacher claims to know his paternal grandfather and have many cousins. However, Past Tense, establishes that Reacher hasn't met anyone in his father's family when he visits the town his father came from. During the events of Past Tense, Reacher meets three distant cousins of his, one of whom, Mark Reacher, is involved in a murderous criminal conspiracy, with their distant relation not compelling Reacher to show him any mercy. One of the others is named Stan Reacher, and reveals that Reacher's father (real name William) used his name to enlist in the Marines while underage after killing a local criminal. Stan never knew William's parents, or how closely related they were to his. Stan also is unclear exactly how closely related he and Reacher are to Mark but believes Mark is one of the many grandchildren of a relative Stan never met in person, who made a fortune in real estate. Reacher leaves town with good new stories about his father, but with little additional insight into his exact family tree. Eileen Ann Hutton, age unknown, is a Brigadier General in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps. She and Reacher had a relationship prior to, and featured in, One Shot.

Among his few indulgences are casual sex and coffee, which he drinks frequently. [10] [47] [48] Physical appearance [ edit ] Nash Newman, a military pathologist who specializes in identifying battlefield remains and appears in Tripwire.

Reacher is mentioned several times in the Stephen King novel Under the Dome, where he is described by the character Colonel Cox as "the toughest goddam Army cop that ever served, in my humble opinion." [83] [note 4] Lee Child's endorsement of Under the Dome appears on the cover of at least one edition of the book. [ citation needed]

Child, Lee (1997). "Chapter 10". Killing Floor. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc. ISBN 1-4295-1117-6. First: Character is king. There are probably fewer than six books every century remembered specifically for their plots. People remember characters. Same with television. Who remembers the Lone Ranger? Everybody. Who remembers any actual Lone Ranger story lines? Nobody.” Lee Child has described Reacher's accomplices and their characterization and origin in the following terms: " The whole cast for each book is new. It kind of depends on what the scenario is and what the set up is. Do I use people that I actually know? In a way yeah, because you met people and you regard them as meta-typical as one thing or another – so as a large extent, yes, they are based on people I've met but not specific individuals." [67] Pre-military era [ edit ] Lee Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England. His family soon moved to Birmingham, where he went to the same high school that J. R. R. Tolkien once attended. He received a formal English education, learning Latin, Greek, and Old English, before he attended law school in Sheffield. After working in the theater, he began an eighteen-year career with Granada Television in Manchester. After company-wide restructuring, he left, embarking on a fiction-writing career. He has no need for or interest in employment. He’s not a proactive do-gooder. So why does he get involved in things? Well, partly because of noblesse oblige, a French chivalric concept that means “nobility obligates,” which mandates honorable, generous, and responsible behavior because of high rank or birth.”Detective Griezman, a German policeman who aides Reacher and his colleagues in hunting an American traitor (who also murdered a German prostitute who Griezman had been sleeping with) in Night School. Officer Roscoe, 30, is a Margrave, Georgia police officer in Killing Floor. She is Reacher's accomplice throughout the novel and they have a brief relationship. Her first name is never revealed in the novel, but she appears in the Reacher TV series as Roscoe Conklin, and is played by Willa Fitzgerald. Legal language strives for concision and avoids ambiguity wherever possible. The result is inevitably dull, but all that striving and avoiding really teaches a person how to write.”