HE is the best-selling author who has sold around 200 million copies of his Jack Reacher novels. Now Lee Child is retiring from writing his famous creation - but it emerges that the popular character will endure.
Jack Reacher?
The character of the former Army Military Police officer first appeared in 1997 in the book, Killing Floor. The novel was the first published work of Lee Child, who turned to writing after working as a TV executive for 18 years until losing his job during restructuring.
The books are a publishing phenomenon?
The 24th, Blue Moon, was published last year and two movies have been made with Tom Cruise starring - Jack Reacher in 2012 and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, in 2016.
Reacher’s a drifter?
The 6ft 5in, 250lb vigilante hero travels the US, taking the bus or hitchhiking and carries only a toothbrush with him, buying new clothes only when he needs them and solving mysteries and righting wrongs along the way.
Fans are obsessive?
Avid readers - fans include authors Kate Atkinson and Margaret Drabble - notably showed their protective side toward the character when the books were adapted for the silver screen and Cruise was cast in the lead role, sparking an outcry.
Really?
Cruise is just 5ft 7 and 3/4 inches and Reacher’s size is regarded as key to his character.
In 2018, Child confirmed that the Cruise franchise was over, saying “ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it's a big component of who he is”. He added: “The idea is that when Reacher walks into a room, you're all a little nervous just for that first minute. And Cruise, for all his talent, didn't have that physicality.”
What now?
Child, 65 and with homes in Manhattan, Wyoming, England and the South of France, has revealed he thought of killing of Reacher - but has instead passed the rights for the franchise to his sibling, Andrew Grant, as long as he changes his surname to Child.
Child, whose birth name was James Grant, said: “I thought about different ways of killing Reacher off. First of all I thought he would go out in a blaze of bullets, something like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It would take an army to bring him down.”
But he added: "Reacher had to have an afterlife after I was done. It feels like a natural development. My brother is a good writer. Now he has a hero.”
His brother is a writer?
Grant, 51, is also a thriller writer, whose own series revolves around the life of a spy, David Trevellyan.
So Reacher lives on?
It is rumoured his adventures are being turned into an Amazon Prime series, and now new adventures are to be penned by Child’s kin.
Child said: “Readers don’t need to know about me or whoever writes the books. They only really care about Reacher. And I know he’s now in safe hands.”
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