Reacher Author Explains Why Series Adapts His Books Out of Order

The adaptation of Lee Child‘s Jack Reacher novels into the Prime Video series Reacher has been a bigger hit than anyone could have anticipated, and part of the appeal of the show appears to be its non-linear approach to Child’s book series. Although some series build up large casts of supporting characters season by season and concentrate on a continuous timeline of events across multiple seasons, Reacher is not one of them. In a recent conversation with Empire Magazine, Child explained the approach to deliberately telling Reacher’s story out of publication order.

Reacher kicked off with its inaugural season being based on Child’s first novel, Killing Floor. However, Season 2 adapted Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th novel, and next up is Persuader, the seventh novel. According to the author, this was a strategic decision to first introduce the character of Jack Reacher in the same way readers were drawn into the world, and then all about telling stories that explored his character. Child said:

“There was no reason to do them in order. We had massive discussions about it. The thinking went like this: Killing Floor introduces Reacher as a person. So, which book shows his professional life, and what he did while he was in the Army? The result was Bad Luck And Trouble.”

This approach to the series almost makes Reacher an anthology series that just happens to have the same central character, allowing audiences to jump into the show in any season without having to know anything that came before. This is something that could help draw even more viewers into Season 3 when it arrives on Prime Video.

Reacher Has Been an Unstoppable Success

The announcement of Reacher Season 3 heading into production was made almost simultaneously as the second season’s record-breaking debut. Alan Ritchson’s portrayal of Jack Reacher has been pivotal in bringing the character’s physicality and intensity to the screen, embodying the essence of Child’s creation in a way that Tom Cruise couldn’t quite pull off in his two movie outings. This has made Reacher one of the most successful and talked about shows of the last year, and that is likely to continue when the series returns for its third season.

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While the reviews of Season 2 were by no means as positive as its previous season, Reacher’s viewership has made that pretty much irrelevant when it comes to the future of the franchise. It is clear that Prime Video are completely invested in bringing as many Reacher stories to streaming as possible, and it seems that Ritchson has found his happy place in the titular role, meaning that fans have a lot more Reacher to look forward to in the future.