James Dover Grant (born 29 October 1954), primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series. The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won the Anthony Award and the 1998 Barry Award for Best First Novel.
Contents
Early life and education
Grant was born in Coventry, England. His Northern Irish Protestant father, who was born in Belfast, was a tax inspector at the Inland Revenue. His father fought in World War II; he was in the armoured column that arrived at Belsen to liberate the concentration camp in 1945. His mother began working at 19 at the Inland Revenue but had to leave her job when she married his father.
He is the second of four sons; his younger brother, Andrew Grant, is also a thriller novelist. He has an older brother called Richard who he described as a "nuclear scientist".
Grant's family moved to Handsworth Wood in Birmingham when he was four years old so that the boys could receive a better education. Grant attended Cherry Orchard Primary School in Handsworth Wood until the age of 11. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham.
In 1974, at the age of 20, Grant studied law at the University of Sheffield, though he had no intention of entering the legal profession. During his student days, he worked backstage in a theatre. After graduating, he worked in commercial television. He received a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Sheffield in 1977 and returned to the university to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) in 2009.
Career
Television production career
Grant joined Granada Television, part of the UK's ITV Network, in Manchester as a presentation director. There he was involved with shows including Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. Grant was involved in the transmission of more than 40,000 hours of programmes for Granada, writing thousands of commercials and news stories. He worked at Granada from 1977 to 1995 and ended his career there with two years as a trade union shop steward.
Writing career
In August 1994, Grant was informed that his job was due to be eliminated in a corporate restructuring, and in anticipation of the coming job loss (he was made redundant in June 1995), he decided to start writing a novel in September 1994. The first book was initially titled Bad Luck and Trouble (this title was re-used in a later book) and was about drug money, but changed to Killing Floor and about counterfeiting on the suggestions of his agent and his publisher. In March 1997, Killing Floor was published, and became a great success. Grant moved to the United States in the summer of 1998. He starts each new book of the series on the anniversary of his starting the first book.
His pen name "Lee" comes from a mispronunciation of the name of Renault's Le Car, as "Lee Car". Calling anything "Lee" became a family gag. His daughter, Ruth, was "lee child". The name has the advantage of placing his books alphabetically on bookshop and library shelves between crime fiction greats Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.
Grant has said that he came up with the name Reacher for the central character in his novels when he was grocery shopping with his wife, Jane, at Asda supermarket in Kendal, Cumbria, when he was living at Kirkby Lonsdale. Grant is 6'3'' and his stature often leads to people asking him to get something for them from a high shelf. Jane once joked: "'Hey, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, you could always be a reacher in a supermarket.' ... 'I thought, Reacher—good name.'"
Some books in the Jack Reacher series are written in the first person, while others are written in the third person. Grant has characterised the books as revenge stories – "Somebody does a very bad thing, and Reacher takes revenge" – driven by his anger at the downsizing at Granada. Although English, he deliberately chose to write American-style thrillers.
In 2007, Grant collaborated with 14 other writers to create the 17-part serial thriller The Chopin Manuscript, narrated by Alfred Molina. This was broadcast weekly on Audible.com between 25 September 2007 and 13 November 2007.
Grant worked as a visiting professor at the University of Sheffield from November 2008. In 2009, Grant funded 52 Jack Reacher scholarships for students at the university.
Writing style
Grant's prose has been described as "hardboiled" and "commercial" in style. In a 2012 interview, Grant said many aspects of the Jack Reacher novels were meant to maintain the books' profitability, rather than for literary reasons. For instance, Jack Reacher was given one French parent in part to increase the series' appeal in France. The interviewer wrote that Grant "didn't apologise about the commercial nature" of his fiction. He called novels the "purest form of entertainment."
Child has listed John D. MacDonald, Alistair MacLean, and Robert B. Parker as influences on the Reacher series.
Other activities
In 2019, Child collaborated with musicians Jennifer and Scott Smith of the group Naked Blue on an album of music exploring Jack Reacher, in song. He contributed vocals to the track "Reacher Said Nothing."
In 2020, Child joined the Booker Prize judging panel, alongside chair Margaret Busby, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson.
In December 2025, Child was a guest on BBC Radio 4's programme Desert Island Discs, with his favourite choice of music being "So What" by Miles Davis.
Philanthropy
In January 2012, Grant donated £10,000 for a new vehicle for the Brecon Mountain Rescue Team in Wales.
Grant is an annual sponsor and original member of ThrillerFest.
Personal life
Grant married his wife Jane in 1975. They have a daughter. They moved to New York State in 1998 at the beginning of his writing career. In 2025, he moved back to the UK with his family.
Grant is a fan of Aston Villa Football Club; his books sometimes include the names of Aston Villa players. In his 1997 first Jack Reacher novel Killing Floor, the name of mayor of Margrave, Grover Teale, is an oblique reference to Villa player Shaun Teale.
In 2013, Grant rejected claims initially reported in the Daily Mail that he wrote while under the influence of cannabis.
Works
Novels
Jack Reacher series:
Note: For consistency, ISBN is that of the Bantam Press (UK) hardcover, first printing only.
^ by Lee Child and Andrew Child
Non-fiction
The Hero, Publication: London: TLS Books, 2019 ISBN 978-0-00-835578-4.
Short stories
Collections:
No Middle Name (2017), collection of two novellas and ten short stories from the Jack Reacher series:
"Too Much Time" (novella), "Deep Down", "Everyone Talks", "Guy Walks into a Bar", "High Heat" (novella), "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"
Safe Enough (2024), collection of twenty short stories:
"The Bodyguard", "The Greatest Trick of All", "Ten Keys", "Safe Enough", "Normal in Every Way", "The .50 Solution", "Public Transportation", "Me and Mr. Rafferty", "Section 7 (a) (Operational)", "Addicted to Sweetness", "The Bone-Headed League", "I Heard a Romantic Story", "My First Drug Trial", "Wet with Rain", "The Truth About What Happened", "Pierre, Lucien & Me", "New Blank Document", "Shorty and the Briefcase", "Dying for a Cigarette", "The Snake Eater by the Numbers"
Jack Reacher series:
Other short stories:
"The Snake Eater by the Numbers", chapter six from the serialized novel Like a Charm (2004, edited by Karin Slaughter)
"Ten Keys", collected in The Cocaine Chronicles (2005, edited by Jervey Tervalon and Gary Phillips)
"The Greatest Trick of All", collected in Greatest Hits (2005, edited by Robert J. Randisi), and in The Best British Mysteries IV (2007)
"Safe Enough", collected in MWA Presents Death Do Us Part (2006)
"The .50 Solution", collected in Bloodlines: A Horse Racing Anthology (2006)
Adaptations
Jack Reacher (2012), film directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie, based on novel One Shot. An American thriller film starring Tom Cruise. Grant made a cameo appearance as a police desk sergeant in the film.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), film directed by Edward Zwick, and written by Richard Wenk, Zwick, and Marshall Herskovitz, based on the novel Never Go Back. With Tom Cruise reprising the role. In the film, the final scene is set in New Orleans, which was not a location in the book. Grant made a cameo appearance as an airport ticket agent in the film.
Reacher (2022), an Amazon Prime series starring Alan Ritchson. In the last episode of season 1, Grant can be seen in the last chapter as a man walking out of the diner who says "Excuse me" when passing Reacher. Reacher then speaks to Finlay and eats a piece of peach pie.
Awards
Honorary degrees
Child has received honorary degrees from several universities. These include:
Honours
Grant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to literature.