:: KILLING FLOOR (Reacher #1, 1997)
WHERE better to begin than at the beginning? Six months out of the army and eager to see the America he missed while growing up on military bases around the world, Jack Reacher is footloose and responsibility free – until the towering ex-Military Policeman is wrongly accused of murder while visiting the seemingly unassuming town of Margrave.
With the help of allies in local law enforcement, Reacher uses his MP-developed skills to prove his innocence and discover why he's being framed: when the revelation arrives, he suddenly has a very personal reason to take down the real perpetrators with extreme prejudice.
Written in the first person for extra immediacy, Killing Floor is a cracking read from start to finish, setting a high bar for the Jack Reacher series which Child has been consistently vaulting over ever since.
It was also adapted into the first series of the Reacher TV series to fine effect, with its man mountain star Alan Ritchson finally bringing an authentic version of this iconic literary character to the screen (sorry, Tom).
:: THE ENEMY (Reacher #8, 2004)
THIS is the first book where we get to meet Jack Reacher while he's still a serving Military Policeman, offering an intriguing glimpse of the younger version of this by now familiar character just as he hits a turning point in life and career.
Set in North Carolina as 1989 becomes 1990 and the US Army is just beginning to re-imagine itself in the wake of the Berlin Wall coming down, Reacher must contend with the death of a two star general at a seedy motel near his post. Top secret documents have gone missing, and the young MP also has personal business to attend to which takes him overseas to Paris in the company of his brother, Joe.
It's a formative tale for Reacher, who teams up with a female MP to investigate the crime. Relying on his personal code of right and wrong, he must navigate what starts to look very much like a cover-up staged by parties within the US Army he's dedicated his life to – and which he may no longer have/want a future with.
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:: GONE TOMORROW (Reacher #13, 2009)
THIS Reacher kicks off with perhaps the most arresting opening lines of the entire series: "Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of tell-tale signs. Mostly because they are nervous. By definition, they are all first-timers".
In the wake of a riveting first chapter in which we find our hero encountering a suspected suicide bomber on the New York City subway, a woman is dead. Reacher becomes determined to discover the real reasons behind her violent demise and why there are suddenly a lot of armed men in suits following him around the city.
Somebody powerful wants the matter buried and is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect their interests, but – as usual – they haven't bargained on dealing with a man like Reacher, who goes after the truth like a dog digging for its favourite bone.
A giant, violent dog, with paws the size of Thanksgiving turkeys.
:: THE SENTINEL (Reacher #25, 2020)
THE Sentinel was the first Reacher thriller for which Lee Child teamed up with his younger brother Andrew to help breathe fresh life into the best-selling character as his own retirement from the series beckons.
Not everyone enjoyed this transition to co-authorship: some claimed that Reacher suddenly became a tad too chatty for a character by then synonymous with the sentence 'Reacher said nothing', others that giving Reacher a mobile phone went completely against his Luddite nature (even though he'd used them plenty of times before, when necessary).
However, The Sentinel is as important a moment for Jack Reacher as Killing Floor: without this one, we might not have got any more Reacher books full-stop – even if it is a slight 'speed bump' in the series as far as some hardcore fans are concerned.
:: Stuart Neville in conversation with Lee and Andrew Child, Crime Fiction Special at the John Hewitt International Summer School, Monday July 24, Market Place Theatre, Armagh, 8.30pm. Tickets £14 via marketplacearmagh.ticketsolve.com
