Of all the things Lee Child and Jack Reacher may have in common, the most obvious (besides their fundamental need for coffee) is that they are both individually and collectively larger than life.
While author and creation each make a formidable impression—Child stands just an inch shorter than Reacher’s 6’5″, albeit without “arms like tree trunks” or the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound weigh-in—it’s their shared impact on popular culture that truly resounds.
Since debuting with Killing Floor in 1997, Child (born James Grant) has seen Reacher not only become the star of a blockbuster book series that has sold more than 100 million copies globally, but an action hero on the big screen and streaming platforms, where he is currently portrayed by Alan Ritchson.
This fall marks the drifter and former military policeman’s thirtieth full-length adventure in Exit Strategy (November 11, 2025; Bantam); further, The Mysterious Press has also released a collection of Child’s essays, Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories, that were previously only available as introductions to their special editions of the books.
Readers will note that Exit Strategy appears under the shared byline of Lee Child and Andrew Child. This is the sixth such novel to do so since The Sentinel, which began an authorial collaboration between the brothers Grant.
Before assuming the Child surname for purposes of this collaboration, Andrew Grant was already a successful suspense author; his works include two series, one featuring Royal Naval Intelligence officer David Trevellyan and the other Birmingham, Alabama-based detective Cooper Devereaux.
What readers may not know (I didn’t, as will soon become apparent) is that Grant fully assumed the reigns of the Reacher series with last year’s In Too Deep. The byline will not change, however, as Lee Child’s name is as much the brand as Reacher himself.
And speaking of Reacher: While the hand that holds the pencil may have changed, the protagonist will largely stay the same. The character will be placed in new circumstances, and given new challenges to overcome, while remaining beholden to his intrinsic sense of right and wrong, regardless of the personal peril that ensues.
For instance, in Exit Strategy, a seemingly innocuous visit to a Baltimore coffee shop results in a plot that percolates with danger and intrigue as Reacher decides to take up the cause of a man whose stealth tactics he admires—and whose treacherous enemies he can’t ignore.
Now, Lee Child and Andrew Child discuss the past, present, and future of Jack Reacher….
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John B. Valeri: This is the season for reflection. In addition to Exit Strategy marking Reacher’s thirtieth adventure, The Mysterious Press recently released a collection of the essays (Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories) you wrote in introduction of the first twenty-four Reacher novels they released as special editions.
How has looking back allowed you to view Reacher’s evolution, and your own, with fresh eyes? Also, in what ways has your personal and professional relationship with the work changed since amassing a global audience of millions and, as a result, having (a) publisher(s) to help sustain in a volatile industry?
Lee Child: I wrote those essays mostly year by year, as the special editions were published one by one, so each of them is a fairly contemporaneous report, made when my memory was still fresh. Then they were collected together and published as one volume. Naturally, I read through the compilation, and that’s when the “fresh eyes” thing kicked in.
I guess what I noticed most was the infinite time and energy I had in the early days. The paradox is that the more successful a writer gets, the less time he has for actual writing.
And strangely, I never had a sense of a massive audience—as soon as you have an audience of, say, two thousand readers, that’s already too big to comprehend as individuals. I just wrote the story I personally wanted to hear. It’s my good fortune that what pleased me also pleased lots of other people.
The paradox is that the more successful a writer gets, the less time he has for actual writing.JBV: In recent years, you’ve begun collaborating on the series with your brother, Andrew—an accomplished novelist in his own right. What are the benefits of having a co-writer who is also a blood relative? The challenges? And how do you approach conflict resolution when differences of opinion arise about the character you created but who is now a shared entity?
LC: Andrew and I did four books together as a collaboration, and now he’s writing them solo. I had observed lots of similar ventures (mostly involving authors who died!) and felt that a great writer might get about ninety-five percent of the way there. My theory was that shared DNA, upbringings, and similar personalities might nudge that percentage toward a hundred, and I think it worked out that way.
There’s never any conflict—Andrew is a great writer himself, and my best friend, really, and we never fight. Plus, in a literary-theory kind of way, the ownership of a character is absolutely designed to migrate outward—I actively want other people to feel Reacher is theirs. So Andrew’s opinions are just as valid as mine.
JBV: Reacher is ex-military, which informs his mindset and motivations as well as the mechanics of his physicality. How does his background influence his moral code and rules of engagement?
LC: From being a young kid, I was interested in my dad’s (rare) stories about his military service during WW2. He was a dutiful man who would never, ever break the rules he was presented with—but clearly the rules inside the military universe were very different to the civilian universe. I think that shows up in Reacher—he’s living proof that the two aren’t the same.
JBV: In a complex and ever-changing world, Reacher remains the embodiment of the primitive “wanderer hero” archetype—a character whose needs and roots are minimal to non-existent. What appeals to you about the convergence of modernity and tradition? How can such contrast be present in ways that are sometimes complimentary and other times convergent.
LC: We have to ask why that character has always appealed and has been re-invented over and over again during the history of human narrative. The only answer must be that humans deeply, deeply desire such people to exist, to help out, and to solve dire problems—and that some (or most?) people want to actually be that character, to help others and to make the world a better place.
So I don’t really see it as a convergence of tradition and modernity—it’s today’s expression of that deep human desire, building on yesterday’s, and foreshadowing tomorrow’s.
JBV: You have said that Andrew will fully take over the series at some point. In what ways has this partnership allowed you the flexibility to pursue other creative or passion projects while ensuring that Reacher’s world continues to spin?
LC: Andrew has done the last two solo, and I’m delighted about it. I think his books are great—couldn’t be better. Exit Strategy is a great example – I would have been extremely proud if I had written it myself. I’m involving myself in the Amazon TV universe, and I have started a big new project about prison literacy. If reading helps even one in ten prisoners not to come back, that’s a huge win right there.
Here, Lee steps out as Andrew steps forward.
JBV: You adopted the surname Child when you began collaborating with your brother on the Reacher books (despite having already been well established in the field under your born name. Beyond commercial/practical concerns, how do you see this change as marking a differentiation between your earlier solo works and the collaborative Reacher novels?
Also, what is your approach to maintaining a sense of identity and creative fulfillment while working on such a well-established and beloved series?
Andrew Child: The idea behind adopting the pen name Child was twofold: We wanted to emphasize the family connection between Lee and me—it’s very unusual, if not unique, for a living author to hand the reins to his brother, as opposed to an author’s estate finding someone unrelated to continue the work—and to therefore reassure readers that due to the deep DNA connection Reacher would continue unchanged and uninterrupted.
As for identity, whether writing as Grant or Child, my goal is for the author to be invisible. I try to make everything I do serve the character and the story, and ultimately the reader. The creative fulfillment comes from helping a beloved (by me, too, since before Killing Floor even hit the shelves) series to thrive.
JBV: Writing is often a solitary endeavor (though your wife, Tasha Alexander, is also a novelist). Tell us about the transition from composing alone to working with Lee. How does this partnership play out in real-time, as a story is being written? Have you found that your comfort level has grown now that you’ve worked on six books together or has your confidence been consistent throughout?
AC: I felt comfortable from the moment we started work on The Sentinel, which was the first book we wrote together. The process felt incredibly natural because for twenty-five years Lee and I had taken every opportunity to hang out together and talk about Reacher as if he was an extra, invisible brother.
We’d spend hours dreaming up scenarios to drop Reacher into and imagining his reaction to different kinds of situation. The only difference was that when we began our collaboration, I had to write everything down afterward….
JBV: Justice is in the eye of the beholder and often achieved in the gray areas that exist between black and white. Unlike most crimefighters, Reacher is not beholden to the rule of law but rather his own sense of right and wrong.
How do you endeavor to toe the line between avenger and authority figure without compromising the character’s essential goodness or humanity? Has it to been challenging to work in a realm that is less constrictive than the traditional crime story or do you find that freedom liberating?
AC: It is often observed that law and justice are two separate things. Reacher—as any reader will know—is concerned with justice, and it that conflicts with adhering to the law, then the law will lose, every time. From there, it is Reacher’s moral code—clear and unwavering—that fuels his goodness, keeps him human, and builds his appeal as a character.
One signature trait is that he is simply incapable of walking away from injustice, as we see in Exit Strategy when Reacher pursues the villain of the piece—at great personal risk—rather than allowing him to escape or passing the responsibility to anyone else. Reacher’s sense of right and wrong is so definite and well established that it greatly helps the process of charting his adventures because it provides a constant yardstick to guide his actions.
JBV: While the books are fictional, they reflect real-life issues and events. For instance, Exit Strategy is rife with various profiteering operations that echo stories from our contemporary news cycle. How does fact inform fiction in the making of a Reacher story—and, despite their primary intent to entertain, in what ways might they inspire readers to reconsider the world around them?
AC: The books certainly mirror scenarios that chime with current events because that helps the stories to feel relevant and to inform the characters’ motivations and decisions. I never set out to change people’s views of the world but if that does ever happen, I hope that Reacher’s example of making clear-headed, data-driven decisions and drawing conclusions from facts rather than prejudice will shine through.
Reacher has two natural states—explosive action, and near-comatose stillness. I believe it’s the inherent tension between these conditions that fuels the dynamism that we portray on the page.JBV: Reacher is a man of action, meaning he is in near constant motion—often through physical confrontations that take place in isolated settings. What is your process like to inhabit the tactility and spatial parameters of these situations—and how do you then go about rendering them viscerally on the page?
AC: Reacher has two natural states—explosive action, and near-comatose stillness. I believe it’s the inherent tension between these conditions that fuels the dynamism that we portray on the page. To do this I always think of the characters and the setting as parts of a machine, and try to describe the forces and connections that come into play as they interact.
JBV: You are set to inherit the reins to Reacher fully in the years to come. What might change, what will stay the same – and are their other artistic adventures calling your name?
AC: My goal, as our father would have said, is to make everything the same, only different. In other words to keep all the aspects of Reacher’s character and lifestyle that readers love, but to show him in different circumstances and to give him new challenges to face.
Documenting Reacher’s activities keeps me plenty busy, but I feel I have unfinished business with my Paul McGrath Janitor books so am looking forward to writing more in that series as soon as time allows.
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