The Affair question

If I was Jack Reacher and saw that Tom Cruise was going to pretend to be me, I'd join the protected witness program.

I love the Jack Reacher character...and would hate to see the series end. But I believe that any path Lee Child chooses...I would be a faithful follower.

Like John D. MacDonald's series character Travis McGee, or James Bond--who looks maybe 45 but has been around since the late 1950's--sometimes great series characters can age slower than the passage of time. If he wants, Lee Child can be vague about Reacher's age, keeping him ageless. It's a little harder in Reacher's case than in McGee's, because Reacher's separation from the military and the prequel events of "The Enemy" and "The Affair" are very specific in their timeline. But Travis McGee was a Korean War sergeant, and he was still kicking ass in 1984, so it can be done. McGee appeared in 21 novels between 1964 and 1984, and if you like Reacher, I recommend checking them out.

While I don't look forward to the day that there are no more Jack Reacher stories, I know that day will come. I'm not sure if it needs to happen now. I enjoyed his latest, A Wanted Man, and think Child might have another few more Reacher stories to tell. I don't want to see Child do what Stephen Hunter did to Bob Lee Swagger - if you have read the books then you know what I'm talking about.

Jim Caviezel would be a great Jack Reacher.

LEE CHILD SHOULD DECIDE IF AND WHEN HE DECIDE"S TO RETIRE REACHER but if they are going to film anymore of the books PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT LET TOM CRUISE ANYWHERE NEAR THEM WAS RUBBISH PLAYING HIM

Maybe Lee Child can transition to another main character. Given Reacher's loner status, he will need to be creative, but maybe Reacher and his next character can appear in several books together before transitioning Reacher out to pasture.

As far as I'm aware the next book 20 will be the last.

I don't think Reacher could ever retire, he'd be bored stiff and would end up saving the day regardless... I think he would continue to get involved even when he's in his mobility

I am in love with Reacher..please do not kill him...I read because of reacher...like others...Do not let Tom Cruise play another part..he did not portray Reacher..but, a wimp..I am not a fan of Tom Cruise..he has lost whatever he had..he needs to retire...

I have given up on Jack Reacher. I cannot possible read one more line of "I said nothing"

I don't know. Without spoiling anything...in the newest book, "Never Go Back" Reacher mentions that he is a wanderer...he isn't a person to sit around the campfire, but a person who envies the wolves.

I don't know that, from the set of of the last book, Child can really retire him, per se, because he makes such a point of not being able to settle down. And maybe as he ages it will change the dynamic of the book. But right now, I think, unless Child just wants to leave it there, let us think that Reacher is wandering the world like some mythic beast of old, that he's not ready for the cabin in the woods set up. (Though I like the image of that!)

And maybe that will be how he ends it...Reacher and the road and another long walk?

No, Jack Reacher has too many more adventures ahead.
I love a sexy hero!

Whatever Lee Child decides to do with Reacher in the future, I'll be buying. But yea, maybe he should find a woman and get that cabin in the woods. Trouble would still find him, and he'd take care of it.

Guys like Reacher (and Travis McGee and Spenser) don't RETIRE--they go out like over-the-hill gunfighters.

Ain't gonna happen.

Lee Child's last contract was for $30-40 million, I believe. In a recent interview, he was quoted as saying he hoped to do that again with next year's renewal.

I'd have a hard time retiring a character who makes $8-10 million per book.

Peace, Seeley

NO WAY!!! Maybe some of you are - BUT there are plenty of us who love him - faults & all. If you are tired of him then stop reading him. I sure won't!!

I also believe it is time for Jack Reacher to retire. Not killed off, actually retire. Maybe to a cabin in the woods with a faithful dog and the occasional visit from the area's female sheriff or Doctor. Not only is he getting too old to be able to continue the physical exertion but the fiction that people in the 2000's will pick up this huge guy while hitchhiking on a lonely rural road is beginning to go from -Well, I'll suspend my belief this one time - to the absurd. Not only is he big and ugly but now he is in his mid 50's.
I am big and ugly and in my mid-50's, nobody in their right mind would pick me up while hitchhiking. Heck, I wouldn't. So, maybe one more story where he barely escapes at the end due to the realities of his age, but with the help of a dog, with an epilogue depicting the situation I described previously. In others words, the lonely wandering warrior finally finds a home and peace.

I did wonder if "The Affair", being set as it was in Reacher's army days was going to be a set up for Reacher having a son (with the woman police office). Maybe a way of sort of continuing the series?

I read that Lee Child was going to kill off the Reacher character - he saves a young boy and manages to crawl back to an empty hotel room where Reacher bleeds to death. I really like the big guy and I am pretty sure he still have at least another 5 books in the character.

Reacher hasn't reached the end for me yet :)

David wrote: "Having read every single one of the Reacher series I am beginning to wonder if perhaps Child should retire the big man. He's clearly getting old and now Child brought up a book from his younger yea..."

I think retirement might not be a bad idea. Reacher is definitely getting old. Sometimes they can make a character seem timeless, but Child screwed up with Reacher by pinning down his age. In The Enemy he was still in the Army, and it took place during Gulf War one. In that book Reacher is in his thirties (33 I believe it said). That puts him squarely in his early fifties now, and well past the point at which a person might reliably kick someone's ass. Especially several someones.

The argument could always be made that Reacher stories are not necessarily in chronological order, but Child destroys that argument by placing certain technologies in his stories that betray a definite time-frame.

So, yeah. Reacher's getting old. I don't know about you, but I was WAY past my ass-kicking days by the time I was 50 years old.

I agree. I'd love to see Child come up with a new protagonist.

I was let down by Gone Tomorrow and thought 61 Hours could have been better and wondered if Child had lost his touch, but I felt Worth Dying For was better. The Affair restored my belief that Child is a great writer and can't wait to read the next books in the series.