Lee Child's 17th book, "A Wanted Man," opens with a scene that looks like it was taken straight from the 1960s: The mythological hero, Jack Reacher, stands at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, in the dark of night, trying to hitch a ride. When he does -- 93 minutes later -- get a car to stop for him, we almost expect the music playing to be coming from an 8-track tape recorder, and for the hero to get in the car before it rides off into the black of night over the deserted roads of middle America, not knowing how the journey will end, like that tune on Israeli Army Radio warning soldiers not to hitchhike. Lee Child, the spiritual father of Jack Reacher and one of the most successful thriller novelists in the world, also does not know how the situation in which he has placed his hero will unfold. "When I sit down to write a book, I don't have a plan," he confesses in a telephone interview with Israel Hayom. "I think of a situation -- for example putting Reacher in a strange car in the middle of the night -- and wait to see where it goes. More specifically, I thought to myself, what if he got in a car and it turns out that all the other passengers are lying about what they are doing? That was the basic idea, and the whole book stemmed from there. But I admit that hitchhiking is rarer these days. It used to be much more popular. Today everyone is paranoid: the drivers and the hitchhikers. But it still exists, especially in areas far from cities." As you have probably guessed, Reacher gets in the car and, from here, of course, things start to get complicated. Lee Child (his real name is Jim Grant) was born in 1954 in Coventry, England. For close to 20 years, he was a screenwriter in the heydays Granada Television and took part in extraordinary productions such as "Brideshead Revisited" and "Prime Suspect." In 1995 he was laid off due to corporate downsizing. He decided he wanted to write, used the time he now had available, and within two years finished his first book, "Killing Floor." It was in this novel he created Jack Reacher, the character that would henceforth accompany him to world-wide acclaim, and, suffice it to say, considerable earnings. With the publication of his first book Child moved to the United States, where he lives in the New York area with his wife Jane. To those who are still unacquainted with Jack Reacher: He is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, a graduate of West Point and a former military police investigator. He is extremely tall -- 6.5 feet -- and weighs over 220 pounds. He is potent with his fists and can kill his enemies with a single blow, not to mention his ability shoot them with pinpoint accuracy with a variety of weapons. He is violent; he has few inhibitions, but adheres to a clear moral code. He is intelligent and analyzes what he sees in intricate detail. Up to this point, Reacher is in good company, but there is one unique trait which separates him from the majority of popular literary heroes. Child's spark of genius was making Reacher a wanderer without roots, crisscrossing America by road, doling out justice with his fists, protecting those who cannot protect themselves and punishing criminals appropriately. The modern-day Clint Eastwood Child says Reacher was born because "I had to do something to make a living. I worked for many years in the media, and I knew that to create an attractive character I had to make him alive and breathing, otherwise I wouldn't have a chance. This was the process: I didn't want to create another flawed character along the lines of an alcoholic detective, depressed and full of doubt. I wanted a different type. Someone confident and self assured. Someone decent, normal, untroubled. Not someone constantly second-guessing himself. Of course he has flaws on the exterior, but he his unaware of them. He is certain that he's completely normal, and only we the readers see them." According to Child, "In the first book Jack Reacher is an unsympathetic character: He's dirty, he shoots people in the back -- but because the depiction of him his realistic, it worked." Reacher's grittiness stems, among other things, from his accentuated detachment from relationships, personal connections and family. He doesn't have a permanent home, he doesn't have a job or career and he doesn't have any property outside of a bank account from which he pulls money on occasion. For the most part, however, he goes around without much money in his pockets. He never washes his clothes: He wears them for two or three days at a time and then buys jeans and a shirt at the cheapest store, maybe a sweater, and throws his old clothes in the trash. Child is aware that Reacher is essentially a modern-day version of the Lone Ranger, laying down his brand of the law in the Wild West (like Clint Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"), and of others who preceded him: The wandering knights of the medieval ages who rode across Europe 1,000 years ago, and before them the heroes prevalent in Scandinavian mythology. They administer "natural law." In order for it to work, Child is aware, his modern cowboy needs an empty land and a sense of frontier, and to break what he calls the "soap-opera syndrome": That the hero is not, for example, a Chicago police officer, tied down to a mortgage and career, rather someone for whom the world is his own personal playground Despite his British background Child leans on characters deeply entrenched in American ethos and culture, creating a new style of modern hero who speaks little but hits often. And it caught on. Some of his critics have accused him of being too commercial, and that some of the characters (Reacher's French mother, for example) exist purely for commercial purposes. But when you have sold more than 40 million copies in 75 countries and in 38 languages, why should that bother you- To my question, whether Reacher's character is predicated on his own biography and on England of the 1970s and 80s, where Child grew up, he replies: "It was a different world, a different reality with different rules. Violence was the natural answer to everything back then. England did not espouse multiculturalism like today, every street had its gang and the attitude was very tribal. I was a tough kid in a tough neighborhood. Physically, I grew up early, and I was someone you didn't mess with, the opposite; other kids paid me to protect them. I was good at it. I was in a lot of fights, I broke hands and did damage, but I always felt I was on the side of the good guys. From that perspective, Reacher is similar to me in his approach to life." You said in one of your interviews that someone tried to rob you, and that immediately brought you back to who you were growing up. "That's true. It happened in San Francisco. I was doing a campaign to promote the book "Die Trying." Those types of tours are very exhausting, and I decided to take a little walk to relax. It was close to midnight, the neighborhood wasn't that great ... and this guy came up to me and said 'your money... .' I was already a mature adult, settled in my views, and I was amazed at how quickly I jumped back to my childhood, to that tough kid I was back then. I attacked back and told him that if he doesn't give me his money I'd break his hands. The $5 I took from him I gave to the next homeless person I saw." "The NSA is listening to everyone" In Israel we have a famous song called "Analog Guy In A Digital World." Would you say that's a good description of Jack Reacher- It's amazing you say that. That is exactly the slogan we used to promote the previous book. That's what he's like: He's not on-line. He doesn't have a cell phone, he doesn't have email, he doesn't have Facebook. When he needs to make a phone call he uses public phones. But the advancements kind of catch up to him -- now he has a debit card and a passport." When the NSA is listening in on everybody, as we learned from Edward Snowden, how is it possible to remain so anonymous- "The NSA indeed listens to everyone, but the accumulated information is immense, and the question is how to find the needle in the haystack. As of today, it is still possible." Child, like his protagonist, doesn't waste time. The 18th book in the series, "Never Go Back," was already published last September, and number 19 is slated for release in September of this year. How did the series become such a phenomenal success, particularly when considering the unusual character of Jack Reacher? Child believes it has to do with the unique world he offers his readers. "There is an alternative reality in my books -- comforting; how the world could be. People are sick and tired of bureaucracy, corruption and injustice. They yearn for a simpler world, outlined more explicitly in black and white. It is clear to me, like it is clear to everyone, that people understand they need to abide by the law. But sometimes it gets annoying. They are sophisticated enough to understand that in reality it's not possible to shoot people in the head, but they use the books as a type of security valve. In the books the villain can be killed and the reader can feel good about it, that justice has prevailed," he says. What motivates Reacher? Why does he choose to live the life of a hero- "He would prefer to live a quiet life, were it possible for him. But he sees injustice and immediately feels the need to rectify it. Like the knights of the medieval ages, he is drive by a sense of "noblesse oblige" -- he is obligated to being noble. Those who have must give to those in need. It is a social dictate." Child points out however that "Reacher is not always a champion of the underdog. It is more accurate to say he is against the overdog. In one of the books someone tells Reacher: 'You're always worrying about the little guy,' to which Reacher responds, 'That's not true, I hate the big guy.' "In this way, I think, he expresses a feeling we all share: We don't like the 'big' guys, the politicians, the bankers, the tycoons, those who are above the law. For Reacher it is also a matter of ego; his ego versus the bad guy's ego. And he doesn't like to lose." Tom Cruise -- with some height Fans of the beloved series were surprised to discover that the actor chosen to portray Jack Reacher in the 2012 film adaptation was Tom Cruise, who at around 5 feet 6 inches tall is almost a foot shorter than Reacher. "I know this is a question troubling many Reacher fans," says Child, "but the answer is simple: The camera simply doesn't like large-sized actors. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, has all the physical attributes needed for the part. He does a great job in the movie. I assume there are viewers for whom the movie will be their first introduction to Reacher's character, who will buy the books later." Child reveals that his secret to writing lies in his "resistance to genre-based constraints. In my view, there are only two types of books: Those that make you miss your train stop, and those that don't. Human nature is such that man needs answers to questions. Therefore, if you ask a question at the beginning of the book and answer it at the end -- you have a captive audience. The suspense is built by having to wait for the answer." Your books, and in "A Wanted Man" it stands out in particular, are written in broad strokes. You don't get into much detail and there are also not that many heroes. "Books are not the primary form of entertainment today, and the pace of entertainment is constantly increasing. Therefore, if you want to succeed you need to match the pace set by the other mediums. That's why 'A Wanted Man' is so fast at the beginning, and only afterward, when the reader is already deep in the plot, the pace slows a little. The reader doesn't have patience, and you need to start with momentum, otherwise you've lost him. "As far as the number of heroes, it's a habit that has stuck with me since my work in television. When you write a character for TV you need to justify it -- because every character you add means a lot more expenses: Salary, food, makeup and so on. You don't write a scene for television that takes place in a stadium without investing a whole lot of thought in it. The costs are very high, and it's much more economical to have the scene take place in a room. Even though in a book it doesn't really matter, that habit has stayed with me, and that's why the 'cast' in the book is limited." Do you have any plans to visit Israel- "I visited Israel once in 1985; a private visit to see friends who had immigrated to Israel. I'd be very happy to come again -- Israel in my eyes is a country that lives on the edge, which isn't always comfortable for the people living there, but you feel that life has meaning, that things happening there are important. And I like that type of atmosphere. I also want to thank all my loyal readers in Israel. I receive a translated copy of all my books, and I am always astounded that people read me in languages I don't understand." And what about Jack Reacher, is there a chance he will visit Israel- "In the book I am currently writing he gets a new passport. So in the next 10 years he can travel around the globe, and it's possible he'll make it to Israel, too."
