Showing results by author "Lee Child" in All Categories

An original short story about Jack Reacher, available exclusively in digital format (ebook and audio), following the success of last year's "Second Son". Early in his military career, Jack Reacher is ordered undercover in Washington, to discover which one of four women, all staff officers on fast track careers, is leaking secrets. The suggested method: get close to each in turn. The obvious problem: the most receptive will be the guilty one, with an agenda of her own - to kill the investigation ... and the investigator.

In "James Penney's New Identity", in the dry desert of Southern California, James Penney is laid off from the plant after 17 loyal years of service. With the threat of the bank repossessing his treasured red Firebird, he goes on the run. But why are the cops so hot on his trail? And who is the tall military policeman, built like a weightlifter, who offers him a ride? Set just a few minutes before the terrifying opening of the best-selling Jack Reacher thriller Gone Tomorrow, in "Guy Walks into a Bar", old habits die hard for Jack Reacher. He is always on the lookout for trouble.

Jack Reacher walks alone. No job, no ID, no last known address. Doesn’t want to be found. But he never turns down a plea for help. Especially from a woman. Now a woman tracks him down. A woman serving at the very heart of US power. A woman who needs Reacher’s native cunning, surly charm and controlled aggression to help her with her new job. Her job? Putting herself in the line of fire. Protecting the vice-president of the United States. Her problem? Someone wants the VP dead.

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever.

In this new exclusive short story, number-one Sunday Times best-selling author Lee Child goes back to 1989, when Jack Reacher is serving as an officer in the military police. A young lieutenant colonel in a stylish handmade uniform roars through the damp woods of Georgia in her new silver Porsche - until she meets a very tall soldier with a broken-down car. What could connect a cold-blooded off-post shooting with Reacher; his elder brother, Joe; and a secretive unit of pointy heads from the Pentagon?

Jack Reacher, ex-military drifter of no fixed abode, is stalked and tracked down by an FBI agent. She tells him that in a house raid in Sydney, Australian law enforcement found a list. There were four people on it, including him. The other three are dead. Hours later, Reacher is in the air, on his way to Sydney. What was the evil buried 25 years ago that has now resurfaced? Will Reacher be able to find the killers before they find him?

Exit Wounds is a thrilling anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Elly Griffiths, Dennis Lehane, Joe R. Lansdale, and others.

Here are twenty meticulously plotted, intimate portraits of humanity at its best and worst, featuring assassins, CIA agents, gangsters, and more. A drug-dealing hit man unburdens his fears to a stranger. A rookie cop is assigned to the department’s file room. A ruthless killer only kills bad guys. A methodical bodyguard quits his job when he’s outsmarted. A military mission is planned to perfection. Each story is entirely distinct. And with their economical prose and unexpected twists, each could only have been written by the creator of Jack Reacher.

Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is known for providing unparalleled resources on the craft, art, and business of storytelling, helping writers of all levels improve their skills for nearly a century. Now, this new handbook helps authors navigate the ever-shifting publishing landscape - from pacing, plotting, the business side of publishing, to the current demand for diversity and inclusivity across all genres, and more.

Late at night in a New York cafe, army-cop-turned-drifter Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china, so that he can move on at a moment's notice. He owns nothing, carries less, has never encountered a female colleague he can't bed, or a case he can't solve. But now, Reacher is confronted by a situation so disturbing and deceptive that the truth eludes him. Has he painted targets on the good guys' backs?

15 thriller masters. 1 masterful thriller! Former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a previously unknown score by Frederic Chopin. But he is unaware that, within it's handwritten notes, lies a secret that now threatens the lives of thousands of Americans. As he races from Poland to the U.S. to uncover the mystery of the manuscript, Middleton will be accused of murder, pursued by federal agents, and targeted by assassins.

Two small towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, nothing but 12 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.

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.

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 Affair is set just six months before the opening of Killing Floor....

A lone gunman unleashes pandemonium when he shoots into a crowd of people in a public plaza in Indiana. Five people are killed in cold blood, shot through the head. But he leaves a perfect trail of evidence behind him, and soon the local police chief tracks him down. After his arrest, the shooter's only words are, 'Get Jack Reacher for me.' What could possibly connect this psychopath and the wandering dropout ex-army cop?

New Year's Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall is coming down. Soon America won't have any enemies left to fight. The army is under pressure to downsize. Jack Reacher is the duty military police officer on a base in North Carolina when he takes a call reporting a dead soldier. The body was found in a sleazy motel used by local hookers. Reacher tells the local cop to handle it, it sounds like the guy just had a heart attack. But the dead man turns out to have been a two-star general on a secret mission.

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. Reacher knows the 12 giveaway signs to look out for. Riding the subway at two o'clock in the morning, he comes sharply aware: one by one, a fellow passenger ticks off every bulletpoint on his list. So begins the new heart-stopping new thriller starring today's most admired action hero.

The brand new Jack Reacher short story, published as a digital exclusive. The tiny town of Naismith has nothing going for it - except the start of a wilderness trail through Maine's ancient forests. But one day the trail is suddenly closed by county police. No reason is given. Rumours start - is there something in the woods that no one must see? That no one must even know about? Then Jack Reacher drifts into town. What does he make of the Do Not Enter tape strung between the trees?

Ever wondered what early experiences shaped Reacher's explosive career as butt-kicker supreme, the one-man guided-missile battler for justice? In this original new short story, Lee Child looks back on an incident in his hero Jack Reacher's teenage years as the younger son of a tough career US Marine, on a faraway military base in the Pacific.

Jack Reacher - six foot five and dangerous. Adrift in the hellish heat of Texas. Moving like a shark in the water. Looking for a lift through the vast empty landscape. A Cadillac stops. A ride, but with a hitch. A pretty young woman, alone. Her husband's in jail. When he comes out, he's going to kill her. Her family's hostile, she can't trust the cops, and lawyers won't help. Reacher is her last option. Will this be the first time he says no - to a lady in distress?