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.
Never Go Back
Never Go Back
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Never go back—but Jack Reacher does, and the past finally catches up with him. . . . Never Go Back is a novel of action-charged suspense starring “one of the best thriller characters at work today” (Newsweek).
Former military cop Jack Reacher makes it all the way from snowbound South Dakota to his destination in northeastern Virginia, near Washington, D.C.: the headquarters of his old unit, the 110th MP. The old stone building is the closest thing to a home he ever had.
Reacher is there to meet—in person—the new commanding officer, Major Susan Turner, so far just a warm, intriguing voice on the phone.
But it isn’t Turner behind the CO’s desk. And Reacher is hit with two pieces of shocking news, one with serious criminal consequences, and one too personal to even think about.
When threatened, you can run or fight.
Reacher fights, aiming to find Turner and clear his name, barely a step ahead of the army, and the FBI, and the D.C. Metro police, and four unidentified thugs.
Combining an intricate puzzle of a plot and an exciting chase for truth and justice, Lee Child puts Reacher through his paces—and makes him question who he is, what he’s done, and the very future of his untethered life on the open road.