Showing results by author "Lee Child" in All Categories

First Thrills will include never-before-published stories by New York Times best-selling authors including Lee Child, Stephen Coonts, Jeffery Deaver, Heather Graham, Joan Johnston, John Lescroart, Alex Kava and Deb Carlin, Michael Palmer (with Daniel James Palmer), Karin Slaughter, and Wendi Corsi Staub.

As always, Reacher has no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. One morning, he ends up in a town near Pleasantville, Tennessee. But there’s nothing pleasant about the place. In broad daylight, Reacher spots a hapless soul walking into an ambush. “It was four against one” ...so Reacher intervenes, with his own trademark brand of conflict resolution. The man he saves is Rusty Rutherford, an unassuming IT manager, recently fired after a cyberattack locked up the town’s data, records, information...and secrets.

New Year's Day, 1990. A soldier is found dead in a sleazy motel bed. Jack Reacher is the officer on duty. The soldier turns out to be a two-star general.

A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from? What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Lee Child's Jack Reacher a drifter?

March 1997. A woman has her throat cut behind a bar in Carter Crossing, Mississippi. Just down the road is a big army base.Is the murderer a local guy - or is he a soldier?Jack Reacher, still a major in the military police, is sent in undercover. The county sheriff is a former U.S. Marine - and a stunningly beautiful woman. Her investigation is going nowhere. Is the Pentagon stonewalling her? Or doesn't she really want to find the killer? The adrenaline-pumping, high-voltage action in The Affair is set just six months before the opening of Killing Floor....

Everything starts somewhere. For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997. A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A coverup. young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington. Reacher is ordered undercover - to find out everything he can, to control the local police, and then to vanish. Reacher is a good soldier. But when he gets to Carter Crossing, he finds layers no one saw coming, and the investigation spins out of control.

From the Stone Age to the Greek Tragedies, from Shakespeare to Robin Hood, we have always had our heroes. The hero is at the centre of formative myths in every culture and persists to this day in world-conquering books, films and TV shows. But why do these characters continue to inspire us, and why are they so central to storytelling? Scalpel-sharp on the roots of storytelling and enlightening on the history and science of myth, The Hero is essential listening for anyone trying to write or understand fiction.

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of tell-tale signs, mostly because they're nervous. By definition they're all first-timers. Riding the subway in New York at 2:00 in the morning, Reacher knows the 12 giveaway signs to look out for. Watching one of his fellow passengers, he becomes sharply aware: one by one, she ticks off every bulletpoint on his list.

Jack 'No Middle Name' Reacher, lone wolf, knight errant, ex-military cop, lover of women, scourge of the wicked and righter of wrongs, is the most iconic hero for our age. This is the first time all Lee Child's shorter fiction featuring Jack Reacher has been collected into one volume. A brand-new novella, Too Much Time, is included, as are those previously published only in ebook form: Second Son, James Penney's New Identity, Guy Walks into a Bar, and Deep Down.

Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don’t add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride east to Virginia.

Reacher takes a stroll through a small Wisconsin town and sees a class ring in a pawn shop window: West Point 2005. A tough year to graduate: Iraq, then Afghanistan. The ring is tiny, for a woman, and it has her initials engraved on the inside. Reacher wonders what unlucky circumstance made her give up something she earned over four hard years. He decides to find out. And find the woman. And return her ring. Why not?

In this incredible follow-up to the New York Times and USA Today best seller FaceOff, 22 of the world's most popular thriller writers come together for an unforgettable anthology. MatchUp takes the never-before-seen best seller pairings of FaceOff and adds a delicious new twist: gender. Eleven of the world's best female thriller writers, from Diana Gabaldon to Charlaine Harris, are paired with 11 of the world's best male thriller writers.

Winter in South Dakota. Blowing snow, icy roads, a tired driver. A bus skids and crashes and is stranded in a gathering storm. There's a small town twenty miles away, where a vulnerable witness is guarded around the clock. There's a strange stone building five miles further on, all alone on the prairie. There's a ruthless man who controls everything from the warmth of Mexico....

Jack Reacher has no place to go and all the time in the world to get there, so a remote railroad stop with the curious name of Mother's Rest seems perfect for an aimless one-day stopover. He expects to find a lonely tombstone in a sea of nearly ripe wheat...but instead there is a woman waiting for a missing private investigator, a cryptic note about 200 deaths, and a small town full of silent, watchful people.

61 Hours ended with maverick loner Jack Reacher trapped in a desperate situation from which escape seemed impossible. Even for him. But Reacher has done the impossible before. Now there’s deadly trouble in the wilds of Nebraska… and Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved case of a missing eight-year-old girl, already decades-old, that Reacher can’t let go.The Duncans want Reacher gone—or dead. And it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide.

Jack Reacher walks alone. No job, no ID, no last known address. But he never turns down a plea for help.

Jack Reacher, alone, strolling nowhere. A Chicago street in bright sunshine. A young woman, struggling on crutches. Reacher offers her a steadying arm. And turns to see a handgun aimed at his stomach. Chained in a dark van racing across America, Reacher doesn't know why they've been kidnapped. The woman claims to be FBI. She's certainly tough enough. But at their remote destination, will raw courage be enough to overcome the hopeless odds?

New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn’t. And if you think Reacher isn’t going to get involved . . . then you don’t know Jack.

Two small towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, nothing but twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher can't find a ride, so he walks. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets are four redneck deputies who want to run him out of town. Mistake. They're picking on the wrong guy. Jack Reacher is a big man, and he's in shape. No job, no address, no baggage. Nothing, except bloody-minded curiosity. What is the secret the locals seem so keen to hide?

1992. Eight respectable, upstanding people have been found dead across the US. These deaths look like accidents and don't appear to be connected. Until one body - the victim of a fatal fall from a hospital window - generates some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the Secretary of Defence, who promptly calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher is assigned as the Army's representative. Reacher may be an exceptional soldier, but sweeping other people's secrets under the carpet isn't part of his skill set.