Margaret MacMillan, the great authority on the first world war and a recent Reith lecturer, absolutely loves Child’s books. ‘I read, awestruck, waiting impatiently for the next’ … Margaret Drabble. What page turners, what prose, what landscapes, what motorways and motels, what mythic dimensions! I read, awestruck, waiting impatiently for the next.” Margaret Drabble, asked earlier this year by the Guardian what book she wished she’d written, answered: “Anything by Lee Child. Their success with the grandes dames of literature is especially striking. But what makes Reacher so fascinating is the books’ appeal not only outside, but within the rarefied circles of the literati – unlike, say, the work of Dan Brown or EL James. Kicks in the groin, punches to the head, elbows scything ferociously into flanks.įor stories to be as successful as these, they need to be read by people who don’t generally read. There’s a lot of violence: guns, or scrappy hand-to-hand fighting. In each new town he solves the mystery, gets the bad guys and doles out rough justice. He doesn’t look for trouble, but trouble finds him. He buys new clothes when he needs them, junks the old ones. He travels the US, hitching or taking the bus: it’s a way of life he began as a means to explore the country, but by now, it’s a compulsion.

He has never settled into a “normal” life after leaving the army. The books have been a publishing phenomenon, a huge commercial fiction brand, since the Coventry-born author (real name Jim Grant) wrote the first, Killing Floor, in 1997, when he heard he was getting laid off from his job as a TV executive.

T his month, Lee Child’s latest novel – his 24th thriller featuring Jack Reacher, a 6ft 5in, 250lb former US army military policeman – will be at, or near, the top of the bestseller charts.

Reading order of jack reacher books