James Dover Grant is best know by his pen name, Lee Child. When Grant set out to write detective mysteries, he was clever about the marketing. He chose the pen name Lee Child, not only because it was simple, but Child would appear on bookstore shelves next to Chandler (as in Raymond Chandler) a fellow Brit to whose readers he hoped to appeal. The name Reacher came from Child's sister who would call upon her taller sibling to reach things on high shelves. He was her reacher.
Lee Child's advice to writers is "write the fast things slow and the slow things fast." That's why, when Jack Reacher believes a bad guy is around the corner, you will read a page of how Reacher contemplates his maneuvers before he executes them. Stretch out the action.
Now, after twenty-four Jack Reacher novels, Child is turning over the series to his brother. Let's see how the loyal fans (and there are many) react.
