Lee Child
James Dover Grant (a good writer’s name, really), born 29 October 1954 in Coventry, England, is far better known as Lee Child, phenomenally successful author of a series of thrillers about Jack Reacher, an American who is a former military policeman. This touches close to home for me, because my father was a career U.S. Army military policeman who eventually headed the Criminal Investigation Divison (CID) of the Army, among other notable achievements. He and I talked a lot about the military police and its history, his sometimes dramatic stories from his service, and more often the quiet and methodical daily routines of the work. He was astonished and delighted when Lee Child became such a success with to him what was such an unlikely character.
Grant was a successful and prolific worker in the vineyards of Granada Television, having a role in some their biggest international successes over the years, including productions of Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel in the Crown. Downsized out of this career, he turned to writing with mercenary calculation in his heart — but also with a gift for storytelling and characterization that wins him respect and praise from fellow writers, reviewers, and a devoted world of fans. He is one of our bestselling and most reliable thriller writers. His recent essay for TLS Books (Times Literary Supplement), The Hero, demonstrates his thoughtful background approach on what he pulls off so elegantly.
A Wanted Man
A Wanted Man
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes Lee Child’s short story “Not a Drill” and an excerpt from Make Me!
“The indomitable Reacher burns up the pages.”—USA Today
Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, another telling stories that don’t add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And a hitchhiker with a broken nose. An hour behind them, the FBI descends on an old pumping station where a man was stabbed to death—the knife work professional, the killers nowhere to be seen.
All Jack Reacher wanted was a ride to Virginia. All he did was stick out his thumb. But he soon discovers he has hitched more than a ride. He has tied himself to a massive conspiracy, in which nothing is what it seems, and nobody is telling the truth.
“Furious action . . . [Lee] Child keeps the pacing swift and the surprises rolling. . . . [A] feverishly thrilling series.”—The Miami Herald
“Smart, breathless . . . [with] one of the best female characters in the whole Reacher series.”—The New York Times
“Subtle and nuanced [with] seductive writing and irresistible plot twists.”—Newsweek