Lee and Andrew Child on Better off Dead: An individual and a symbol
The Hindu
The brothers talk about Jack Reacher’s latest adventure and their efforts to keep the antagonist nasty, plausible and personal
Jack Reacher enters a town in the middle of nowhere. A woman is looking for her twin brother and there is a dirty bomb to diffuse. Better off Dead (published by Penguin Random House) is the latest book in a series of thrillers detailing the adventures of an ex-military policeman who solves problems and gets rid of bad guys.
Reacher, who was 36 in the first book, Killing Floor (1997), would be getting on in years now. “Early on in the series, I was scrupulous about making him a year older,” says author Lee Child (67) on a video call from Colorado. “In the beginning, I did not know how long it is going to run. There are 26 books now so technically, Reacher probably should have a walking stick by now. We do not mention the age anymore, and it seems to work well. Nobody says wait a minute, ‘isn’t he supposed to be 59 now?’ The mythic component keeps him eternally young.”
Lee’s brother, Andrew (53), who has been co-authoring the books since last year’s The Sentinel, chimes in from Wyoming, “We have to decide what kind of stories we want to tell based on what we think people want to read. They do not want to read about a geriatric guy staggering about with a walking stick”. (laughs)