Prime Video’s critically acclaimed Reacher series mines much of its plot from British author Lee Child’s series of Jack Reacher novels. Each season covers one book and, so far, Killing Floor, Persuader, and Bad Luck Tomorrow have been adapted. Child has written 30 books, so the show will need to ignore the weaker ones, as it’s unlikely that the Prime Video hit will have 20+ seasons, like Law & Order and The Simpsons.
The show’s star, Alan Ritchson, confirmed via an Instagram post that Reacher Season 4 will be based on Gone Tomorrow. Published in 2009, this is the 13th book in the series, which opens with Jack Reacher spotting a man who looks like a suicide bomber on the New York City Subway at 2 AM, before being thrust into a major conspiracy. The book is widely appreciated by critics, and fans can expect the fourth season to be nothing but exciting. But which books should be ignored in future seasons?
10
‘Nothing to Lose’ (2008)
Nothing to Lose is a moving, perceptive study of how love, good intentions, and sacrifice can still lead to the most unjust outcomes. It also has plenty of exciting action sequences. However, it’s too similar to David Morrell’s 1972 best-selling novel, First Blood, which was turned into a series of films starring Sylvester Stallone, making him one of the biggest ‘80s action stars. Reacher would thus look like it is ripping off that particular movie franchise if it were to adapt this particular book.
In Nothing to Lose, Jack Reacher, in his drifting adventures, wanders into the tiny town of Hope, Colorado (the main town in First Blood is also called Hope), only to be violently chased away by local police when he tries to cross into a neighboring town named Despair. The fact that Reacher and Rambo are both ex-military also makes the similarities a bit too glaring. Showrunner Nick Santora would be wise to leave this story on the pages.
9
‘Blue Moon’ (2019)
Whenever Reacher saves someone in trouble, the scene tends to carry an appalling weight — the “right in time” aspect making us all wish there were angels like him all over. That’s how Blue Moon opens. The drifter helps an elderly man carrying an envelope of cash, unaware that he is caught up in a deadly loan shark scheme to get money for his daughter’s medical treatments.
The Ukrainian and Albanian mafias are the center of the book’s plot, and none of it is exciting to read, since these two particular criminal groups have been explored too much in fiction. Weirdly, they keep popping up since they are never as intriguing as the Cosa Nostra. Even worse, Jack Reacher’s invisibility is dialed up to 99 here. The ease with which he takes down both criminal factions defies logic. Also, many of the solutions stem from coincidence rather than investigative skills.
8
‘A Wanted Man’ (2012)
A Wanted Man is a good novel. It won the “Crime Book of the Year” award by the National Book Awards. But it would be more suitable for a movie than a TV show. That’s because nearly half of the plot unfolds inside a car. And we don’t like to see Reacher squeezed in a vehicle, do we? We like to see him roam and kick a–.
A Wanted Man is also a bit too controversial, given its criticism of America’s comprehensive security response to 9/11. The book opens with the former military investigator hitchhiking, trying to get a ride out of Nebraska. Three people welcome him into their car. They have the faces of angels, but their actions suggest they harbor deep secrets. Reacher soon realizes he is in a getaway vehicle.
7
‘The Sentinel’ (2020)
The Sentinel is the first novel that Lee wrote collaboratively with his younger brother, Andrew Child. The book is so devoted to tech, so jargon-driven, that it begins to seem a little demented. The world is crashing, but here’s our Reacher, with his undeniable honesty, his mastiff drive, trying hard to embrace gadgetry rather than stick to his old school approach.
On this occasion, Reacher saves an IT manager from a kidnapping attempt before investigating a cyber-attack on a small town. Child also goes political, including a plot about Russian interference. And things get deeper, with readers being pulled into sagas involving neo-Nazi groups and a secret government program. It’s all too much at times. Even though tech is key in the modern world, this rarely feels like a Reacher story.
6
‘Personal’ (2014)
Personal is more Bond-like than Reacher-like, with inspiration from The Day of the Jackal. The hero spends much of the book moving across Europe, trying to get an assassin who tried to kill the French president. It’s all illogical, sounding more like a job for spies or Interpol than someone like Jack Reacher, but Lee Child runs with it anyway.
Jack Reacher’s decision-making is also quite poor in the book. There are many instances when he makes a mistake, and upon realizing the gravity of his misjudgment, he must scramble to atone. While doing so, he digs himself into deeper holes, packed with unsavory types. Anyone adapting the book will have to work a little harder to polish the bad characterization. Is it worth it?
5
‘Echo Burning’ (2001)
Echo Burning is more like an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery than a Jack Reacher story, so TV fans who are used to the action are likely to get bored. In the book, a hitchhiking Reacher is picked up by a woman who has a problem. She says her wealthy but abusive husband is about to be released from prison, and she fears for her life. Reacher thus takes up a job at her secluded ranch to protect her. Soon, the man ends up dead. What’s going on?
Whilst Echo Burning’s first half feels like a sagging, darker soap opera, the novel redeems itself in its second half with some memorable visuals and some great detective work. This is presumably the part that Lee wrote when he was happier. However, the stakes are too low and the pacing too languid. Unless major creative liberties are taken, a TV adaptation would be one of the dullest things to ever be made.
4
‘Past Tense’ (2018)
Lee Child’s work is always hit-and-miss, but whenever he misses (not sure that even he knows when and why he has blundered), he still presents something worth reading. Past Tense is a miss, featuring Reacher trying to find his family home and trying to save a couple that’s trapped in a motel. In the book, common sense is often flooded and short-circuited by scenes that’ll ensure quick gratification of the senses
Why does Reacher need to spend so much time looking for his family home when he is King of Moving On? The question is not “Does Past Tense make sense?” or even “Is it really meant to make sense?”, but rather, “Is it necessary?” The story about the couple isn’t powerful enough either. Stretching the book’s plot to eight TV episodes would be overdoing it. We’d be way past the elastic limit by Episode 5.
3
‘High Heat’
High Heat is a novella, so calling for a TV adaptation would be asking for too much. A movie would do, but would it be interesting, given that the book is all over the place? This story finds Reacher in a serious rut: working unfulfilling cases. A visit to New York jolts him out of his aimless existence, especially when he begins a hunt against a serial killer who is murdering couples that are making out in cars. But then the mob shows up again… Arrgh. What for?
Admittedly, Child expertly conveys the deep despair and anguish that his characters feel, laying out some dense paragraphs. Neo-Noir Reacher isn’t bad, and perhaps, the story could have worked out well if Child focused on the serial killer aspect only. Instead, he re-inserts many of the usual tropes, resulting in something that feels familiar yet so confusing.
2
‘The Secret’ (2023)
The Secret is set years before Jack Reacher became a drifter. He is still a military policeman, and it’s hard to see how Amazon would do an entire season that’s only a backstory. The only way it could work is to create a prequel spin-off and cast a younger actor as the action hero, way after the original series has ended.
The book presents an adventurous tale that moves freely between cities and the treacherously beautiful landscapes. Reacher is looking into a string of mysterious deaths involving scientists who all worked on a sensitive project several decades earlier. Who is killing them and why? It’s all very engrossing, but it’s just not meant for the current Amazon series.
1
‘Never Go Back’ (2013)
Never Go Back begins well, but it soon implodes into schlock — Child digging too deep into the “clear your name” trope. In it, Jack Reacher and Major Susan Turner are framed by powerful military figures for crimes they seemingly didn’t commit. They thus break out and try to find answers about what’s really going on.
It’s worth noting that Never Go Back was already adapted into a movie starring Tom Cruise, and the reviews were terrible. Nothing much is likely to change if another person chooses to take another go at it, because the problem wasn’t Cruise… it was the plot. It’s way too formulaic to intrigue genre fans who are looking for something different.
- Release Date
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February 3, 2022
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Nick Santora
- Directors
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Omar Madha, Carol Banker, Julian Holmes, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett, Norberto Barba, Stephen Surjik, Thomas Vincent
- Writers
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Cait Duffy
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