Lee Child

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This article is about the English writer. For the Irish rugby league footballer, see Lee Child (rugby league). For the English tennis player, see Lee Childs.

Lee Child

CBE
Child at Bouchercon XLI, 2010
Child at Bouchercon XLI, 2010
BornJames Dover Grant[1]
(1954-10-29) 29 October 1954 (age 66)
Coventry, Warwickshire, England
OccupationAuthor
EducationKing Edward's School, Birmingham
Alma materUniversity of Sheffield (LLB)
Period1985–present
GenreCrime fiction, mystery, thriller
Notable worksJack Reacher series of novels
RelativesAndrew Grant (writer) (brother)
Signature
Website
leechild.com

James Dover Grant CBE (born 29 October 1954), primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series.[2] The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.[3][4]

Early life[]

Grant was born in Coventry.[5] His Irish father, who was born in Belfast, was a civil servant who lived in the house where the singer Van Morrison was later born.[6][7] He is the second of four sons;[8] his younger brother, Andrew Grant, is also a thriller novelist. Grant's family relocated to Handsworth Wood in Birmingham when he was four years old so that the boys could receive a better education.[9] Grant attended Cherry Orchard Primary School in Handsworth Wood until the age of 11. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham.[10]

In 1974, at the age of 20, Grant studied law[11] at University of Sheffield, though he had no intention of entering the legal profession and, during his student days, worked backstage in a theatre.[7] After graduating, he worked in commercial television.[11] He received a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) Degree from the University of Sheffield in 1977 and returned to the University to receive an Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) in 2009.[12]

Career[]

Television production career[]

Grant at Bouchercon XL, 2009

Grant joined Granada Television, part of the UK's ITV Network, in Manchester as a presentation director.[13] There he was involved with shows including Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. Grant was involved in the transmission of more than 40,000 hours of programming for Granada, writing thousands of commercials and news stories.[14] He worked at Granada from 1977 to 1995[7] and ended his career there with two years as a trade union shop steward.[15]

Writing career[]

After being made redundant from his job because of corporate restructuring,[13] Grant decided to start writing novels, stating they are "the purest form of entertainment."[16] In 1997, his first novel, Killing Floor, was published, and he moved to the United States in the summer of 1998.[11] He starts each new book of the series on an anniversary of his starting the first book after losing his job.[17]

His pen name "Lee" comes from a family joke about a heard mispronunciation of the name of Renault's Le Car, as "Lee Car". Calling anything "Lee" became a family gag. His daughter, Ruth, was "lee child".[18]

"Child" places his books alphabetically on bookstore and library shelves between crime fiction greats Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.[13] Grant has said that he chose the name Reacher for the central character in his novels because he himself is tall and when they were grocery shopping his wife Jane remarked: "'Hey, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, you could always be a reacher in a supermarket.' ... 'I thought, Reacher – good name.'"[7]

Some books in the Jack Reacher series are written in the first person, while others are written in the third person. Grant has characterised the books as revenge stories – "Somebody does a very bad thing, and Reacher takes revenge" – driven by his anger at the downsizing at Granada. Although English, he deliberately chose to write American-style thrillers.[13] In 2007, Grant collaborated with 14 other writers to create the 17-part serial thriller The Chopin Manuscript, narrated by Alfred Molina. This was broadcast weekly on Audible.com between 25 September 2007 and 13 November 2007.

On 30 June 2008, it was announced that Grant would be taking up a Visiting Professorship at the University of Sheffield from November 2008. In 2009, Grant funded 52 Jack Reacher scholarships for students at the university.[19]

Grant was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2009.[20] Grant was the Programming Chair for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2018, part of the Harrogate International Festivals portfolio.[21]

In 2019, it was announced that Child would be curating a new TV show called Lee Child: True Crime. The show will dramatise real-life crime stories from around the world and focus on average people who go to extraordinary lengths to fight crime or seek justice.[22]

In January 2020, Child announced that he would be retiring from writing the Jack Reacher book series, and hand it to his brother Andrew Grant, who would write further books of the series under the surname Child.[23] He intended to write the next few books together with Grant before passing the series entirely over to him.[24]

Writing style[]

Grant's prose has been described as "hardboiled" and "commercial" in style. A 2012 interview suggested that many aspects of the Jack Reacher novels were deliberately aimed at maintaining the books' profitability, rather than for literary reasons. For instance, making Jack Reacher have one parent who was French was suggested as being partly because the presence of only American members of Reacher's family would limit the series's appeal in France. The same interview stated that Grant "didn't apologise about the commercial nature" of his fiction.[25]

Other activities[]

In 2020 Child joined the Booker Prize judging panel, alongside Margaret Busby (chair), Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay and Emily Wilson.[26][27][28]

Philanthropy[]

In January 2012, Grant donated £10,000 (about US$16,000 at the time) towards a new vehicle for Brecon Mountain Rescue Team in Wales. His brother is a senior member of the team. The team's former control vehicle was written off after a collision in 2011.[29]

Grant is an annual sponsor and original member of ThrillerFest.[30]

Personal life[]

Grant married his wife Jane in 1975. Since 1998 they have resided in New York state. They have a daughter, Ruth.[7][11]

Grant is a fan of Aston Villa Football Club[31] and has been known to include the names of Aston Villa players in his books.[32]

In 2013, the Daily Mail quoted Grant saying that he writes while intoxicated ("high") by cannabis. However, in a phone interview in November 2013, he clarified his comments to the Irish Examiner, saying he's never written while high. "Yeah, that's true", Child told The Post-Standard. "I mean, people say to me, 'There was that story in the newspaper,' and I say, 'No, that's The Daily Mail.' In Britain, that's not a newspaper, you know, that's a scandal sheet where they make stuff up. It's not very reliable. And certainly, I don't deny smoking the occasional joint, but I don't work when I'm stoned because you don't get much done that way."[33]

Works[]

Novels[]

Jack Reacher series:

Pub. order Series no. Title Year ISBN Voice
1 9 Killing Floor 1997 0-593-04143-7 1st Person
2 10 Die Trying 1998 0-593-04144-5 3rd Person
3 11 Tripwire 1999 0-593-04393-6 3rd Person
4 12 The Visitor (UK), or Running Blind (US) 2000 0-593-04399-5 3rd Person
5 13 Echo Burning 2001 0-593-04659-5 3rd Person
6 14 Without Fail 2002 0-593-04686-2 3rd Person
7 15 Persuader 2003 0-593-04689-7 1st Person
8 5 The Enemy 2004 0-593-05182-3 1st Person
9 16 One Shot 2005 0-593-05183-1 3rd Person
10 17 The Hard Way 2006 978-0-593-05184-9 3rd Person
11 18 Bad Luck and Trouble 2007 978-0-593-05701-8 3rd Person
12 19 Nothing to Lose 2008 978-0-593-05702-5 3rd Person
13 21 Gone Tomorrow 2009 978-0-593-05705-6 1st Person
14 22 61 Hours 2010 978-0-593-05706-3 3rd Person
15 23 Worth Dying For 2010 978-0-593-06566-2 3rd Person
16 8 The Affair 2011 978-0-593-06570-9 1st Person
17 25 A Wanted Man 2012 978-0-593-06573-0 3rd Person
18 27 Never Go Back 2013 978-0-593-06574-7 3rd Person
19 29 Personal 2014 978-0-593-07382-7 1st Person
20 33 Make Me[34] 2015 978-0-593-07388-9 3rd Person
21 7 Night School[35] 2016 978-0-593-07390-2 3rd Person
22 37 The Midnight Line 2017 978-0-593-07818-1 3rd Person
23 39 Past Tense[36] 2018 978-0-593-07819-8 3rd Person
24 43 Blue Moon[37] 2019 978-1-787-63219-6 3rd Person
25^ 44 The Sentinel[38] 2020 978-1-787-63361-2 3rd Person
26^ 2021 978-1-787-63373-5

Note: For consistency, ISBN is that of the Bantam (UK) hardcover, first printing only.
^ by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Non-fiction[]

  • The Hero, Publication: London: TLS Books, 2019 ISBN 978-0-00835578-4.

Short stories[]

Collections:

  • No Middle Name (2017), collection of two novellas and ten short stories from the Jack Reacher series:
    "Too Much Time" (novella), "Deep Down", "Everyone Talks", "Guy Walks into a Bar", "High Heat" (novella), "James Penney's New Identity" (1999 version), "Maybe They Have a Tradition", "No Room at the Motel", "Not a Drill", "Second Son", "Small Wars", "The Picture of the Lonely Diner"

Jack Reacher series:

Series no. Title Year Notes
6 "James Penney's New Identity" 1999, edited 2006 The 1999 version is longer. Collected in Fresh Blood 3 (edited by Mike Ripley and Maxim Jakubowski) and in Thriller (US)
20 "Guy Walks into a Bar" 2009 Prequel to novel Gone Tomorrow, in The New York Times[39]
1 "Second Son" 2011 Electronic short story
24 "Knowing you're Alive" 2011 With M. J. Rose. Crossover with Butterfield Institute series. Collected in In Session
3 "Deep Down" 2012 Electronic short story
2 "High Heat" 2013 Electronic novella
26 "Everyone Talks" 2013 In Esquire (June/July 2012, US edition)
28 "Not a Drill" 2014 Electronic short story
30 "Good and Valuable Consideration" 2014 With Joseph Finder. Crossover with Nick Heller series. Collected in Face Off (edited by David Baldacci)
31 "No Room at the Motel" 2014
4 "Small Wars" 2015 Electronic short story
32 "The Picture of the Lonely Diner" 2015
34 "Maybe they Have a Tradition" 2016
35 "Faking a Murderer" 2017 With Kathy Reichs. Crossover with Temperance Brennan series. Collected in Matchup
36 "Too Much Time" 2017 Novella
38 "The Christmas Scorpion" 2017 Electronic short story
40 "The Fourth Man" 2018 Included in Australian paperback of Past Tense
41 "Cleaning the Gold" 2019 With Karin Slaughter. Crossover with Will Trent series
42 "Smile" 2019 Collected in Invisible Blood

Other short stories:

  • "The Snake Eater by the Numbers", chapter six from serialized novel Like a Charm (2004, edited by Karin Slaughter)
  • "Ten Keys", collected in The Cocaine Chronicles (2005, edited by and Gary Phillips)
  • "The Greatest Trick of All", collected in Greatest Hits (2005, edited by Robert J. Randisi), and in The Best British Mysteries IV (2007)
  • "Safe Enough", collected in MWA Presents Death Do Us Part (2006)
  • "The .50 Solution", collected in Bloodlines: A Horse Racing Anthology (2006)
  • Chapter 15 from audio serialized novel The Chopin Manuscript (2007)
  • "Public Transportation", collected in Phoenix Noir (2009)
  • One chapter from audio serialized novel The Copper Bracelet (2009)
  • Story collected in The World's Greatest Crime Writers tell the inside Story of Their Great Detectives, or The Line Up (2010), about Jack Reacher and his origins
  • "Me and Mr. Rafferty", collected in The Dark End of the Street (2010, edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S. J. Rozan)
  • "Section 7 (a) (Operational)", collected in Agents of Treachery (2010)
  • "The Bodyguard", collected in First Thrills (2010, edited by Lee Child)
  • "Addicted to Sweetness", collected in MWA Presents The Rich and the Dead (2011, edited by Nelson DeMille)
  • "The Bone-Headed League", collected in A Study in Sherlock (2011)
  • "I Heard a Romantic Story", collected in Love is Murder (2012)
  • "The Hollywood I Remember", collected in Vengeance (2012, edited by Lee Child)
  • "My First Drug Trial", collected in The Marijuana Chronicles (July 2013)
  • "Wet with Rain", collected in Belfast Noir (November 2014)
  • "The Truth About What Happened", collected in In Sunlight or in Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper (December 2016)
  • "Chapter 6: The Fortune Cookie" from the novel Anatomy of Innocence (March 2017)
  • "Pierre, Lucien & Me", collected in Alive in Shape and Color (December 2017)
  • "New Blank Document", collected in It Occurs to Me that I am America (January 2018)
  • "Shorty and the Briefcase", collected in Ten Year Stretch (April 2018)

Adaptations[]

  • Jack Reacher (2012), film directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie, based on novel One Shot. An American thriller film starring Tom Cruise. Grant made a cameo appearance as a police desk sergeant in the film.[40]
  • Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), film directed by Edward Zwick, and written by Richard Wenk, Zwick, and Marshall Herskovitz, based on novel Never Go Back. With Tom Cruise reprising the role. In the film, the final scene is set in New Orleans, which was not a location in the book. The author approved this addition to help the New Orleans economy.[41] In the film, Grant made a cameo appearance as a TSA agent.[42] In the bonus footage on the Blu-ray disc, Child explained that in both films, his cameo appearance involves passing judgment on the character of Jack Reacher, and speculated that he will repeat these type of appearances in future Jack Reacher movies.[43]

Awards[]

Awards of novels[]

Child receiving a Barry Award in 2005 for The Enemy.
Novel title Year Awards/Nominations
Killing Floor 1997 Anthony Award; Barry Award; Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize; Dilys Award nominee; Macavity Award nominee
Die Trying 1998 WH Smith
Without Fail 2002 Dilys Award nominee; Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award nominee
Persuader 2003 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award nominee
The Enemy 2004 Barry Award; Nero Award; Dilys Award nominee
One Shot 2005 Macavity Award nominee
Bad Luck and Trouble 2007 Shortlisted for Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2009[44]
61 Hours 2010 Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, 2011
A Wanted Man 2012 Specsavers' National Book Award, Thriller & Crime Novel of the Year[45]
Personal 2014 RBA Prize for Crime Writing valued at €125,000[46]

Honorary degrees[]

Child has received honorary degrees from several universities. These include:

Location Date School Degree
 England 2009 University of Sheffield Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)[47]
 England 21 July 2011 De Montfort University Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)[48]

Other awards[]

Year Award
2005 The Bob Kellogg Good Citizen Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Internet Writing Community[citation needed]
2013 Cartier Diamond Dagger, lifetime achievement by the Crime Writers' Association[49]
2017 ThrillerMaster, lifetime achievement, by the International Thriller Writers association [50]
2017 Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction, lifetime achievement, Theakston Old Peculier Crime Festival, Harrogate International Festivals[51]
2019 Author of the Year, lifetime achievement, British Book Awards[52]

Honours[]

Grant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to literature.[53]

References[]

  1. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  2. ^ Smith, David (22 June 2008). "Sacked at 40 and on the scrapheap. Now Brummie tops US book charts". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 8 July 2008.
  3. ^ Child, Lee (30 October 2012). Killing Floor. Penguin. ISBN 9780515153651.
  4. ^ "The Barry Awards: A Literary Award for Crime Fiction". awards.omnimystery.com. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  5. ^ Glass, Ben (2 December 2008). "If you don't know Lee Child, you don't know Jack". It's All About Coventry. Archived from the original on 1 December 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
  6. ^ "Best-selling author Lee Child is applying for Irish passport because of Brexit". thejournal.ie. 25 November 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Karim, Ali (May 2003). "The Persuasive Lee Child". January Magazine. Retrieved 7 October 2007.
  8. ^ Myers, Marc (10 November 2017), "Saved by the Beatles in Gray Britain", Wall Street Journal.
  9. ^ Cornwell, Bob. "A Reacher Moment...or Two". twbooks.co.uk. Tangled Web Books UK. Archived from the original on 11 July 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
  10. ^ Smith, David (22 June 2008). "Sacked at 40 and on the Scrapheap: Now Brummie tops US Book Charts". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 June 2008.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b c d White, Claire E. (August 2001). "A Conversation With Lee Child". The Internet Writing Journal. writerswrite.com. Retrieved 7 October 2007.
  12. ^ Smith, David (21 June 2008). "Sacked at 40 and on the scrapheap. Now Brummie tops US book charts". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Curtis, Bryan (20 December 2012). "The Curious Case of Lee Child: Before Tom Cruise could become Jack Reacher, Jim Grant had to become Lee Child". Grantland.com. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
  14. ^ "Lee Child". BookBrowse.com. 1 May 2004.
  15. ^ "A Reacher Moment…or two". twbooks.co.uk. Tangled Web UK. 2005. Archived from the original on 11 July 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2007.
  16. ^ "Select Editions". Readers Digest. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
  17. ^ "Salon Talks". Salon.com. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
  18. ^ "5 Things You Did Not Know About Lee Child". The Penguin Digest. 30 August 2017. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  19. ^ Flood, Alison (30 July 2009). "Students offered scholarships from fictional crimefighter, Jack Reacher". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  20. ^ "People and Publishing: Milestones". Locus: 8. April 2009.
  21. ^ Barnett, Ben (13 November 2017). "Reacher author Child to chair Harrogate's crime writing festival". The Yorkshire Post. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  22. ^ "Lee Child to curate new true-crime drama". Dead Good. 10 April 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  23. ^ Martin, Andy; Sanderson, David (18 January 2020). "Childs play with Jack Reacher's future as author's brother takes over". The Times.
  24. ^ "Jack Reacher author Lee Child passes writing baton to brother". BBC. 18 January 2020.
  25. ^ Maher, Kevin (25 August 2012). "Lee Child on creating Jack Reacher". The Times.
  26. ^ Chandler, Mark (7 January 2020). "Child, Busby and Sissay join 2020 Booker Prize judging panel". The Bookseller. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  27. ^ Child, Lee (August 2020). "Diary: The brilliance of the 'Black Lives Matter' slogan". The Spectator. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  28. ^ "How to Judge the Booker Prize in a Pandemic". 16 September 2020.
  29. ^ "Author Lee Child's £10k to Brecon Mountain Rescue Team". BBC News. 24 January 2012.
  30. ^ ThrillerFest website.
  31. ^ "Exclusive interview with ace author Child in matchday programme". AVFC.co.uk. Aston Villa Football Club. 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  32. ^ Child, Lee (1 September 2014). "Lee Child". Simon Mayo Drivetime. Interviewed by Simon Mayo. Radio 2; BBC. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  33. ^ Herbert, Geoff (15 December 2013). "'Jack Reacher' author Lee Child talks Tom Cruise and marijuana before Syracuse lecture". Syracuse.com. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  34. ^ "Jack Reacher Book #20". leechild.us. United States. 26 November 2014. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  35. ^ "Jack Reacher Book #21". leechild.us. United States. 2 December 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  36. ^ "[Post on Lee Child's Facebook account]". United States. 26 January 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  37. ^ Kean, Danuta (1 November 2018). "Lee Child joins authors auctioning character names for charity". The Guardian. United Kingdom. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
  38. ^ "New Book Announcement".
  39. ^ Child, Lee (6 June 2009). "Guy Walks Into a Bar... ". The New York Times.
  40. ^ "Jack Reacher (2012)". IMDb.com. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  41. ^ "Movies". LeeChild.com.
  42. ^ "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)". IMDb.com. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  43. ^ "Lee Child's cameo in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back". YouTube.com. Lee Child. 20 January 2017. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  44. ^ "Shortlist for Theakston's Crime Novel of the year Award 2009". digyorkshire.com. 2 June 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
  45. ^ Flood, Alison (5 December 2012). "EL James comes out on top at National Book awards". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  46. ^ "British author Lee Child receives the 'prestigious' RBA Prize for Crime Writing". CatalanNewsAgency.com. 5 September 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  47. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2018.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  48. ^ "Author Lee Child receives De Montfort University degree", BBC News Leicester, 21 July 2011.
  49. ^ Flood, Alison (12 February 2013). "Lee Child gets away with major crime writing award". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
  50. ^ https://www.thrillerwriters.org
  51. ^ "Chris Brookmyre scoops top crime novel award for Black Widow". The Shropshire Star. 20 July 2017.
  52. ^ https://www.thebookseller.com
  53. ^ "No. 62666". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 June 2019. p. B9.

External links[]

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