Lee Child

Lee Child is the pen name of British author Jim Grant, creator of the Jack Reacher series, one of the bestselling thriller franchises in modern publishing. Beginning with Killing Floor in 1997, the novels follow Reacher, a former U.S. Army military police major who wanders the country with no fixed home, repeatedly drawn into violence and injustice he feels compelled to correct. Before becoming a novelist, Child worked in British television production, an industry background he has said shaped his instinct for pace and structure. The character has been adapted for the screen twice: in two Tom Cruise films and, more faithfully, in Amazon Prime Video's Reacher series starring Alan Ritchson, which began in 2022. Since 2020, Child has increasingly handed writing duties to his younger brother, Andrew Child (writing as Andrew Child, born Andrew Grant), with recent novels credited to both or to Andrew alone, continuing the series' trademark blend of terse prose and relentless plotting. New readers should start with Killing Floor, the character's origin story and still one of the series' most acclaimed entries.