History Literature / JackReacher

* Once Reacher finally reaches his old headquarters in ''Never Go Back'', the soldiers running the crime syndicate [[spoiler:from inside the 110th]] and who have almost gotten rid of its CO suddenly need to deal with him as well, which they do by first having him reinstated, then arresting him on an old trumped-up charge of excessive force as well as a fake paternity lawsuit. The irony is that Reacher made the decision to go back just because he wanted to meet his successor.
* CoolOldGuy: In the later parts of the series, Reacher is pushing 60, yet still easily kicking the ass of anyone in his way

-->'''Pauling''': But you can't get no satisfaction?

* WhatHaveYouDoneForMeLately: Said word per word by Reacher's CO, Colonel Garber. This is important in context because it's the straw that breaks Reacher's back in the Army. After insulting an ObstructiveBureaucrat officer while investigating a serial killing involving a Special Ops major, Reacher finds himself on the Army's separation list. Garber is willing to take Reacher off the separation list, but warns Reacher that the Army will never allow Reacher to advance past his current rank. When Reacher protests, Garber asks him this question, implicitly telling Reacher that it's time to get out.

*** >Get your retaliation in first.

* ColdSniper: John Kott, the rogue sniper in ''Personal''. After getting arrested by Reacher, he dedicates his whole life trying to get back at him. [[spoiler: Reacher deduces that the BigBad O'Day must have provided John with financial support upon his release, and nurtured Kott's hatred of Reacher so he would eliminate him as soon as he had the chance. This would prevent Reacher from discovering who really was behind it all ([[XanatosGambit whether Kott or Reacher died]]) and keep the BigBad's position secure. It ''almost'' worked.]]

* GreaterScopeVillain: In ''Personal'', whoever's behind the assassination attempt. [[spoiler:Except the assassination attempt wasn't. After the book's climactic fight, it's revealed that General Tom O'Day
is the one who ordered John Kott to snipe at the French president, which prompted U.S. intelligence to reach out to Reacher, the MP who's once arrested Kott in the past, in effect triggering the plot of the book. Reacher doesn't kill O'Day on the spot because he has to make sure nothing happens to his partner, Casey Nice. He just [[LeaveBehindAPistol puts a gun on the desk]]. [[CutHimselfSaving O'Day dies in a weapon handling accident. Officially.]].]]

*** >Get your retaliation in first.

** Reacher himself could also be considered this, as in ''The Hard Way'' the narration notes that "the remorse gene" does not exist in his DNA.

*** >Get your retaliation in first.

** ''The Affair'' covers his early retirement and the fact that he killed a congressman and a commanding officer of a special forces team for the murder and cover up of three girls near a training facility for the Army.

* GreaterScopeVillain: General Tom O'Day in ''Personal.'' After the book's climactic fight, it's revealed that O'Day is the one who ordered John Kott to snipe at the French president, which prompted U.S. intelligence to reach out to Reacher, the MP who's once arrested Kott in the past, in effect triggering the plot of the book. Reacher doesn't kill O'Day on the spot because he has to make sure nothing happens to his partner, Casey Nice.

** "Reacher said nothing." Seriously, Child has got that macroed.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Reacher has never thought much of John Kott, the rogue sniper he arrested in his Army days. Kott, however, takes his arrest as a personal insult and looks to get even with Reacher as soon as he's finished his prison time. (Reacher eventually figures out Kott's obsession was stoked by the {{Chessmaster}} who [[spoiler:had Kott make an assassination attempt on a national leader prior to an important conference so that they could lead a joint capture operation, thus banking some political influence and raising their profile]]).

* ColdSniper: John Kott, the rogue sniper in ''Personal''. After getting arrested by Reacher, he dedicates his whole life trying to get back at him (aided by the BigBad, who Reacher deduces must have provided John with financial support upon his release and nurtured his hatred of Reacher so he would eliminate him as soon as he had the chance, thus preventing Reacher from discovering who really was behind it all and keeping the BigBad's position secure).

** Averted in ''Worth Dying For''. [[spoiler:Eleanor Duncan]] calls the police with evidence of all the crimes going on, but because [[spoiler:she admits that her husband constantly beats her, they think she's just making things up to get back at him.]] Thing is, she actually did get at least one cop's attention, and so when Reacher catches a lift, he ends up getting dropped off in exactly the right place for him to start setting things to rights.

* WeaponOfChoice: While he generally prefers fighting with his hands, Reacher's go-to sidearms are the Beretta 92, and the rarer Steyr GB.

** In ''Tripwire'', Reacher gets his hands on a [[RareGuns Steyr GB]], then later screws on a suppressor stolen from a gun runner on the end of the barrel; The Steyr GB has a ported barrel to allow its gas delayed-blowback system to function; a ported barrel would interfere with the effectiveness of a suppressor, since the device is meant to hold the explosive gases and slow them down in order to reduce the noise of the pistol. Then again, [[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/552253973029782439/?nic_v2=1a6VWkcN2 a German gun company attempted to put a suppressor on a licensed copy of the GB]], though its effectiveness is unknown.

* HollywoodSilencer: Defied, any time a silenced weapon appears, the author or Reacher is quick to point out how they don't sound like they do in the movies. One book describes a suppressed [[RareGuns Steyr GB]] as sounding like a book being thrown on the floor.

* RareGuns: Several novels feature Reacher making use of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_GB Steyr GB]], a relatively rare German handgun that only had limited production and importation in the US.

A series of novels by British-born Lee Child, about [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks ex-Military Policeman]] Jack Reacher, WalkingTheEarth after mustering out from over a decade of service. A MilitaryBrat, having spent his younger years being posted all around the world, he decides to get a closer look at his home country. On his journeys across America he stumbles across his fair share of forgers, smugglers, gun runners, drug dealers and assassins. Being a JerkWithAHeartOfGold and a former soldier with a personal code of honor, he executes vigilante justice without mercy and proceeds to, in a very realistic matter, kick the asses of the villains.

* AirportNovel: According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, Child explicitly writes these books as such.

** In ''Never Go Back'', Reacher is hit with a paternity lawsuit alleging he's the father of a fourteen maybe fifteen year old girl. As he's also getting hit with a decades-old excessive force charge, Reacher knows the paternity suit is at best a distraction or at worst a trap. However, he ''has to make sure,'' so events happen in a way that make him head out to where the supposed mother and daughter are. He finds himself meeting [[AwesomeMcCoolName Sam(antha) Dayton]], a fourteen maybe fifteen year old girl who's tall and blond like him, with excellent observational skills, a penchant for wandering off by herself, casual dangerous conversations, etc. She's essentially a [[LittleMissBadass Badass In Training]] just missing a mentor father figure to help her to the next level. [[spoiler:It's a damn shame Reacher and Sam's mother don't even know each other.]]

* PositiveDiscrimination: The GirlOfTheWeek has a tendency to be smarter, tougher, and more competent than most of the characters, while the male supporting characters have a tendency to be selfish, weak, stupid, or smarmy.

* WaxingLyrical: In ''The Hard Way'', Reacher and Pauling briefly quote [[Music/TheRollingStones Satisfaction]] lyrics at each other, in reference to Reacher's huge accumulation of random trivia.

* KnifeNut: The villains of ''Gone Tomorrow'', whose favorite method of execution is disembowelment. In contrast, Reacher says that he hates using knives, and he'll only do it if he can't get a better weapon.

** In ''The Enemy'', Reacher investigates the murder of a soldier that looks as if the soldier was killed for being gay. However, since the crime scene has a ridiculous amount of multination to the victim's corpse to make it look like a hate crime, Reacher concludes that it ''wasn't'' a hate crime because it's unlikely that a real hate crime would be that excessive; he believes that the murderer was just trying way too hard to make the murder look like a hate crime to throw off investigators.

!Novels in the series:

* ChekhovsGag: In ''61 Hours'', Reacher has a conversation with bthe police deputy Peterson about 'Plato', the alias of a criminal they're after. Peterson doesn't know who the actual Plato was, and they have a brief back-and-forth that ends with Reacher telling him that Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher. Later, Peterson looks up 'Plato' in the police database, and gets redirected to Google, which helpfully tells him that Plato was a Greek philosopher. [[spoiler:This turns out to be a more conventional ChekhovsGun when they view some footage of a coded message from Plato.]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Novels]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Short stories and novellas]]
* "Second Son"
* "Deep Down"
* "Guy Walks into a Bar"
* "James Penney's New Identity"
* "High Heat"
* "Everyone Talks"
* "Not a Drill"
* "Good and Valuable Consideration"
* "Small Wars"
* "The Picture of the Lonely Diner"
* "Faking a Murderer"
* "Too Much Time"
* "The Christmas Scorpion"
* "The Fourth Man"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Collections]]
* ''No Middle Name''[[note]]Includes two novellas (''Too Much Time'' and ''High Heat'') and ten short stories ("Deep Down", "Everyone Talks", "Guy Walks into a Bar", "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", and the first chapter of ''The Midnight Line'')[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Adaptations]]
[[index]]
* ''Film/JackReacher'' (2012), film adaptation based on ''One Shot'' and starring Creator/TomCruise as Reacher.
** ''Film/JackReacherNeverGoBack'' (2016), film sequel based on ''Never Go Back''.
* ''Series/{{Reacher}}'' (2022-), Creator/PrimeVideo series with Creator/AlanRitchson in the lead role. Unrelated to the films.
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]

* HollywoodSilencer: Defied, any time a silenced weapon it appears the author or Reacher is quick to point out how they don't sound like they do in the movies. One book describes a suppressed [[RareGuns Steyr GB]] as sounding like a book being thrown on the floor.

Received a film adaptation based on the novel ''One Shot'' titled ''Film/JackReacher'', which was directed and written by Christopher [=McQuarrie=], starring Creator/TomCruise in the lead role with Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Robert Duvall, and Creator/WernerHerzog also starring. A sequel titled ''Film/JackReacherNeverGoBack'', based on 2013's ''Never Go Back'', was released in 2016.

In 2022, a new series, titled ''Series/{{Reacher}}'', debuted on Creator/PrimeVideo with Creator/AlanRitchson playing the lead role.

* GeniusBruiser: Reacher is usually portrayed as this.