How Jack Reacher Author Lee Child Chooses Which Book Prime Video Will Adapt Next

There are 29 "Jack Reacher" novels published so far, and over a dozen short stories. There is no shortage of material for the "Reacher" TV series to work with, which is great except for one crucial problem: when it comes time to get to work on the new season, how does the show choose which book to adapt next? The obvious choice would be to go in chronological order, but "Reacher" abandoned this approach as early as its second season, which jumped far past the second novel to adapt the eleventh. 

The "Jack Reacher" books are all fairly standalone thanks to Reacher's deep unwillingness to stay in one place or make permanent friends, which means there are few downsides to the show's approach of picking whichever book interests them the most. There'll need to be occasional adaptative changes, sure, but never anything serious. 

In a February 2025 interview with Reuters, author Lee Child (who is also an executive producer for the TV series) shed some light on how the show picks its next book each season. "It's a random choice in a way," he said. "It's like a reader can pick up any of the books and be entirely satisfied... They all stand alone. So in a sense it can be random." But rather than truly picking at random, Child explained that there was some method to the show's madness:

"We try to impose some kind of logic to it, in that season 1 was really about Reacher's emotional roots with his real family. Then season 2 was his emotional roots with his professional family. And season 3, therefore, we can launch him on his own, the classic lone wolf Reacher and 'Persuader' was a great story for that."

If the first two seasons were about Reacher's different families, and the third season was about Reacher being a lone wolf, what will "Reacher" season 4 be about? We know already that it'll be adapting the thirteenth book in the series, "Gone Tomorrow." This is the book where Reacher's in the New York City subway and spots a woman he suspects of being a suicide bomber. Admittedly it seems a little soon for the series to return to Manhattan after the events of season 2, but then again they could always change it to another city with a metro, like Washington DC or Philadelphia. (The show has been seen filming in the latter location.) 

At first glance, "Gone Tomorrow" seems like yet another lone wolf Jack Reacher adventure, something similar in tone and theme to season 3. The main difference is that, while season 3 was a personal revenge story for Reacher, "Gone Tomorrow" sells itself as more of a mystery story. Reacher doesn't have much of a history with the villains, not that this stops the book from making their showdown interesting. 

"Reacher" season 4 doesn't need to distinguish itself too much from season 3 though, because season 3 was arguably the show's best season yet. As fun as it may have been to explore Reacher's past in season 1, by the time the less-popular season 2 finished up fans were sick of all the flashbacks. The flashback-light season 3 felt like a breath of fresh air, so it makes sense season 4 would continue that approach at least one more time. The fully lone-wolf Reacher was a huge hit in season 3, and it looks like he'll be sticking around for at least another year.