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] 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 ). This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( March 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) a b c Child, Lee (April 2005). "Chapter 19". The Enemy. Dell Publishing Company. ISBN 9780440241010.

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. 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.” 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] Cogdill, Oline (13 September 2007). "Characters welcomed! And you can be one, too". weblogs.sun-sentinel.com. Sun-Sentinel. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016 . Retrieved 29 March 2017. At the time Lee Child sat down to write his first novel Killing Floor, he was unemployed, having been made redundant from his position as a presentation director for Granada Television. [1] [2] [3] According to Child, authorship was a purely pragmatic decision: "I wasn't one of these people that felt compelled to write. It had to keep a roof over our heads, so it was totally, totally 110% commercially motivated." [3]Child, Lee (2009). The Enemy. Random House Publishing. ISBN 9780440245995. [Joe] was probably the only other human on the planet who liked coffee as much as I did. He started drinking it when he was six. I copied him immediately. I was four. Neither of us has stopped since. The Reacher brothers' need for caffeine makes heroin addiction look like an amusing little take-it-or-leave-it sideline. 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). 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. And you've done nothing but chip away at my problem. You're ignoring your own, with the Big Dog. Which is just as serious. Therefore, you still care for others. Which means you can't really be feral. I imagine caring for others is the first thing to go. And you still know right from wrong. Which all means you're OK. [34] 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).

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?” Very interesting and informative. I am glad you shared your process in "building or maybe discovering" Reacher. Child, Lee (2001). "Chapter 6". Echo Burning. London: Transworld Publishers. ISBN 0-515-13331-0. One night I just kind of exploded with fury. I yelled O-K-, come out and try it! Just damn well try it! I'll beat the shit right out of you! I raced it down. I turned the fear into aggression. 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.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 ]

Susan Duffy, appears in Persuader. She is Reacher's accomplice throughout the novel and they have a brief relationship. 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 ] 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. 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. Otto Penzler (editor) The lineup: the world's greatest crime writers tell the inside story of their greatest detectives. Little, Brown (2009)WIMBLEDON CUP" (PDF). 12 April 2022. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 April 2022 . Retrieved 4 January 2023. a b c d e f Child, Lee (2004). "Chapter 6". The Enemy. London: Transworld Publishers. ISBN 0-553-81585-7. Among his formal qualifications, Reacher is described as the only non-Marine to win the Wimbledon Cup, [22] a US Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational Rifle Competition; achieving a record score in 1988. [23] (Although the Wimbledon Cup is in fact a 1,000 yard long-range shooting competition, it is not at all exclusive to the US Marine Corps; since 1875, the championship has been held in most years by the National Rifle Association during the National Rifle and Pistol Matches, and is open to both military and civilian shooters. The actual winner of the 1988 Wimbledon Cup was Earl R. Libetrau, with a score of 197-10X, and 99 on the shootoff for the win—which was not a record score.) [24] [25] Anecdotally his fitness reports rated him well above average in the classroom, excellent in the field, fluently bilingual in English and French, passable in Spanish, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry, and beyond outstanding at hand-to-hand combat. [26] Later years [ edit ] He has various scars, most notably a collection of roughly stitched scars on his abdomen caused by a bombing in Lebanon, [52] with ugly raised welts that are later instrumental in saving his life, a 3-to-4-inch-wide (8 to 10cm) white scar that intersects his shrapnel scar that he received during a knife fight in Gone Tomorrow. Reacher attributes his survival to the rough MASH stitch work. [53] 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]