Class ring bears the answers
Child’s writing never disappoints, his bestselling streak is proof, writes Kevin Ritchie
ACLASS ring from West Point, the iconic US Military Academy, lying in a pawn shop is the catalyst for a desperate search for its owner. All we know is that the owner must have been a woman – and that she graduated in 2005.
It’s a classic needle in a haystack scenario but fiction’s favourite fixer Jack Reacher is no ordinary detective. He’s no ordinary human being for that matter. This is the premise for The Midnight Line, author Lee Child’s 22nd outing with the character he created in 1986, which turned into the runaway best-seller Killing Floor.
Child is published in 101 countries. He and his publishers stopped counting when book sales went over 100 million, at a rough count, the series is probably sitting at more than 120 million sales so far.
Child starts writing on September 1 every year, the anniversary of the day he started writing Killing Floor. He writes mostly in New York where he lives near Central Park and the process will take him 80 to 90 “good writing days”, but given the normal interruptions, author tours and just life, this normally extends to six to seven months. He only submits one draft, editing his work as he goes along.
“It doesn’t get easier,” he says by telephone from London, “each one’s the same challenge. There’s an old expression, you never learn to write a novel, if you’re lucky you’ll learn to write the one that you’re busy with.”
He’s very conscious of not letting the reader down, particularly given the length of the series and determined never to write by rote. It’s an attitude that’s stood him in good stead throughout what has been a very long career of almost 21 years with the same character – a hulking former US Military Police major who travels the length and breadth of the US, and sometimes the UK and Europe, just living, experiencing life as a civilian, minding his own business, but invariably trouble either finds him or he’s roped in to sort out someone else’s problems.
It’s a model that’s worked extremely well for Child, who is originally British
and sat down to write Killing Floor after being laid off at the age of 40 from the TV company where he worked.
Jack Reacher is as popular among female readers as he is among men, referenced by many of the top novelists in the world from Stephen King to James Patterson, Marian Keyes and Karin Slaughter – and beloved of Tom Cruise, who bought the rights to star in two film versions.
Child is unsure if there will be future films or whether Cruise will star in them.
“You must remember that the movie deal was signed in 2005. The movie business is in a period of change at the moment, is there room for a straight-forward narrative movie like the books I write, or is it better suited for 12- to 15-episode TV series, which you can binge watch?”
His feeling is that TV in this day and age is probably a better fit.
“Cruise will stay on as executive producer but there will probably be a change of actor because TV doesn’t trade on stars like the movies do.”
The Midnight Line finds Reacher wanting to find out what has happened to the owner of the ring, why she would have been so desperate to have to sell it. He needs, as a West Point alumnus himself, to make sure she’s ok, if so, he’ll walk away, if not…
It’s a journey that will explore the world of the Purple Heart recipients, the unique US medal awarded to soldiers wounded in action, and the issues of post traumatic stress disorder.
“My grandfather was wounded in World War I,” he says, speaking on the Monday after Remembrance Sunday. “You get attention in the beginning, hospitals, care but then you have to live with the injury for the rest of your life.”
It’s particularly difficult, he’s found out from his interaction with war veterans in the US and UK, when the wounds are either facial or intimate.
“I’ve done quite a bit of work with wounded veterans and the reaction is totally different when it’s a leg that’s been lost.”
As always, the locale is lovingly rendered, in this case the wilds of Wyoming. Child is scrupulous about his research although his physical research of geographical areas – a hallmark of the Reacher series – isn’t directly linked to each story, but rather done at different times and then mined from memory or notes when it fits the story.
“All novelists are curious. I just live my life and observe.”
So, will there be more Reacher novels in the future?
“It depends on the readers,” he says. “A writer is the servant of the reader, it depends on the ongoing demand and, of course, if I still have the ability to write them. There could be a few left, there could be many, who knows?”