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.
The Affair
The Affair
Everything starts somewhere. For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997.
A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A cover-up. A young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington.
Reacher is ordered undercoverto find out everything he can and then to vanish. But when he gets to Carter Crossing, Reacher meets local sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux, who has a thirst for justiceand an appetite for secrets. Uncertain they can trust each other, they reluctantly join forces. Finding unexpected layers to the case, Reacher works to uncover the truth, while others try to bury it forever. The conspiracy threatens to shatter his faith in his mission—and turn him into a man to be feared.
Don’t miss Lee Child’s short story “Second Son” and a sneak peek of his new novel, A Wanted Man, in the back of the book.