The satiric sci-fi author Douglas Adams once wrote, “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Now, substitute the name Jack Reacher for “space,” and you essentially have the core conceit of the two dozen or so Reacher thrillers written by Lee Child over the last 25 years.
Jack Reacher has many other notable traits besides being huge: He was a veteran Army investigator! He now lives as a hobo, wandering from town to town with little but the clothes on his back and a folding travel toothbrush! He’s a brilliant detective with almost superhuman powers of perception and time-keeping! Mostly, though, Reacher is big: a six-foot-five wall of muscle — with hands Child has at various points compared to the size of both dinner…
