Jack Reacher enters a town in the middle of nowhere. A woman is looking for her twin brother and there is a dirty bomb to diffuse. Better off Dead (published by Penguin Random House) is the latest book in a series of thrillers detailing the adventures of an ex-military policeman who solves problems and gets rid of bad guys.
Reacher, who was 36 in the first book, Killing Floor (1997), would be getting on in years now. “Early on in the series, I was scrupulous about making him a year older,” says author Lee Child (67) on a video call from Colorado. “In the beginning, I did not know how long it is going to run. There are 26 books now so technically, Reacher probably should have a walking stick by now. We do not mention the age anymore, and it seems to work well. Nobody says wait a minute, ‘isn’t he supposed to be 59 now?’ The mythic component keeps him eternally young.”
Lee’s brother, Andrew (53), who has been co-authoring the books since last year’s The Sentinel , chimes in from Wyoming, “We have to decide what kind of stories we want to tell based on what we think people want to read. They do not want to read about a geriatric guy staggering about with a walking stick”. (laughs)
Two in one
Reacher is two things in one, Lee says. “He is an individual and a symbol, of the mysterious stranger, or the knight errant. We have got to make him up to date at the same time reminding people that this is a mythic figure that goes back thousands of years.”
The collaboration the second time around has been much easier, Lee says. “ The Sentinel had one specific purpose. I wanted to take advantage of Andrew coming on board, to make Reacher a little more modern in terms of technology. I am old fashioned and therefore so was Reacher. He only just discovered texting a few books ago. In a way that was charming, but it was also getting grotesque. I said to Andrew, we have got to push Reacher forward a little bit in terms of technology. That gave us a narrower field to work in. We did not have any restrictions on Better off Dead . That freedom made it an absolute blast.”
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Andrew agrees saying it was a combination of not having any preconceived objectives other than having fun writing the book and the confidence gained by the collaboration working out with The Sentinel . “The first time, you have that little bit of doubt in the back of your mind of whether this would work. And when it worked out well, you have the confidence and find it easier to dismiss the doubting voices. We just had fun. It was back to stacking the villains up and watching Reacher knocking them down. ( laughs )
Better off Dead begins with a James Bond kind of pre-credit sequence which ends with Reacher on a slab in the morgue. Andrew says the brothers do not plan too far ahead. “When we started the book, most of our discussions were about how we wanted it to feel, the tone of the book. I had the idea for what ended up being the second scene, with a single tree, amongst these hundreds of miles of barren landscape and a crashed Jeep.”
Andrew then thought there is a better way to do it. “It was a risk, the idea was outrageous, and I did not know if it would work or if I could pull it off. I thought the only thing to do is to put it down on paper, and send it to Lee.” Big brother loved the idea and called it a killer opening.
Edge city
Setting Better off Dead in a border town has a particular appeal says Lee. “One side of it is obviously somewhere else, like a foreign country and therefore it feels like the end or the edge of a nation. That puts a certain kind of pressure and feeling into the town.”
There are kind of two sides to a border town, says Andrew. “There is the metaphorical side that Lee was suggesting and the physical one. In crime fiction, you have always have two groups of people—the good guys and bad guys, the detectives and the criminals. Having a physical boundary, between the two sides emphasises that split. From a practical point of view, it provides some challenges for your characters. How do you cross the border? How do you smuggle something across that border? There are so many things that you can do to add interest and intrigue the reader.”
In Better off Dead , like all other Reacher books, the antagonist, Dendoncker, is particularly nasty. “There is a temptation to make the villain worse and worse,” says Lee. “What we try and do is the opposite of that. We worked hard to make the villain human and plausible, certainly nasty, bad and horrible, but an identifiable type of person. We make him bad in a personal way. We do not want the villain to get bigger and bigger to the point where he is ludicrous.”
The key word is personal, says Andrew. “It is a thriller, so he is going to be involved in some kind of nefarious scheme. In order to connect with the reader, you have to have that personal sense of repulsion or outrage or disgust, something that is going to engage you on an individual level.”
First or third?
The decision to write the book in first person was determined by the story says Andrew. “In Better off Dead , we wanted to see the opening through one set of eyes and then explain how that had come about and what happened as a result of it through Reacher’s eyes, it made sense for the bulk of the story to be told from his point of view.”
With first person you can make it slightly more interior and internal, says Lee. “It worked well in Better off Dead in establishing the problem. The adventure begins with Reacher meeting the woman who has crashed the Jeep against the tree. Reacher, and this was Andrews invention, does not want to get involved because he thinks the whole situation is crazy. His best judgement is to calm her down, make sure she is alright and then get out. That type of thinking is perfect in first person, and would be weird in third.”
At the beginning of every Reacher story, Andrew says, there is some kind of coincidence, which draws Reacher into the adventure. “There are only so many ways that you can do that. You cannot have him constantly anxious to spring into action. This time we felt, let us have him wanting to walk away. As the details are revealed, he realises that it is something he cannot walk away from.”
The title was thanks to Andrew, says Lee says. “My track record on titles is patchy. It is hard to find a good title, especially one that sums up Reacher in just two or three words.” At the early stage of the book, Andrew says, “I must have been looking at it through Reacher’s eyes. I could see the bad guys and I remember thinking yeah, those guys are better off dead. It just translated perfectly into the title. If you look back at some of the classic titles, such as Without Fail or The Hard Way , they just are two or three words that capture Reacher’s essence.
Scar tissue
The blast in Beirut that gave Reacher his scar makes an appearance in the book. “It is just to remind people of his long and troubled history,” says Lee. “The scar was first mentioned in the second book, Die Trying , which is now 24 books ago.”
Andrew says it works on two levels. “If it is the first Reacher book you pick up, you would find out about the scar and that is all you need to know. If you are a long-term Reacher fan, then it is like a reward, an Easter egg. We were talking about making the villain personal. It was personal to Reacher because he was injured and carries the scar. People around him were killed. It is not something that you could possibly turn a blind eye to or walk away from.
On the look out
Reacher is always looking for something but he is not quite sure what it is, says Lee. “He loves to be alone and is also worried about being lonely. In every book, there is a certain intensity, almost a craving with which he wants company, even if it is for a short time.”
He feels that he does not need the normal trappings of life, like possessions and relationships, says Andrew. “He wonders if maybe he should, is he lacking in some way because he does not need these things. There is a permanent push and pull, where he is pulling towards something that he wonders if he needs but at the same time pushing it away because he does not understand it and does not see why it is important.”
Andrew says he and his wife, Tasha, discuss this dichotomy in Reacher. “Is it a strength or weakness that he cannot form a long term relationship?” Lee describes it as a catch-22 situation. “The problem is the women Reacher is attracted to are too intelligent to fall for him.”
And no there is no chance of Reacher getting himself a dog. “That would become a visual cliché, the hobo with his dog on a piece of string,” Lee says with a laugh.
Show and tell
Reacher , a show based on the novels will be streaming on Amazon from February 4, 2022. “Just a couple of hours ago I was sitting in this very chair doing promotions for season one. I cannot wait to see what people think of it. The actor playing Reacher, Alan Ritchson, is fantastic. It is based on Killing Floor . There is a difference between the page and the screen. I wrote Killing Floor in 1995. The producers had to decide whether it would be a retro piece set in the 1990s, or if it should be set in the present day. They have gone with the latter and it works really well.” Look out for Lee’s cameo in the show.
