Lee Child has revealed one of his personal favourite Jack Reacher books that he’d “love” Amazon to adapt next.
The best-selling author created the action hero in 1997 and, as of January 2022, has written 28 books in total, several of which have been adapted for the screen.
While loyal readers made no secret of their disdain for Hollywood actor Tom Cruise playing the character in two film adaptations, they are much more approving of Alan Ritchson, who has returned to play the hulking action hero in a third season of Prime Video series, Reacher.
While season one of Reacher was based on Child’s debut novel, Killing Floor, the second season jumped ahead and depicted events seen in 2007’s Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th book in the series.
Season three’s source material is Child’s seventh Reacher novel, Persuader, which was published in 2003. The writer is now looking ahead to what books could be adapted in future seasons.
When asked by The Independent if he had a personal favourite Reacher novel, he named book 22, The Midnight Sky, as one of his picks.
“It was well received but The Midnight Line is one of my favourites because it was an opioid book, but it was written from the point of view of the addict with tremendous sympathy,” Child, 70, explained.
Child said that most projects that tackle the opioid crisis focus on “the dealers and the crooked doctors”, leaving “the actual addicts themselves as ciphers”.
“I’m addicted to numerous things myself and so I wanted to show it from the addicts point of view – make it sympathetic, make it human – and I’m proud of that book.”
He continued: “I wonder if it will ever get made. We have to see whether we ever choose that one, but I’d love to see how it comes out.”
However, Child said that “hopefully” by the time it gets adapted, the opioid crisis “will be over because it’s a horrible thing”.
He added that he thought the series could adapt the novels out of release order as he “very deliberately wrote the book series so you did not have to have any prior knowledge”.
“I wanted people to be able to pick up any title anywhere and have a really satisfying story, so we can take the same approach,” he said.
Child also produces the Reacher series, which is developed by Nick Santora.
