Get ready for a lot more Jack Reacher in 2023. Not only is the second season of Amazon’s Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson, set to drop sometime in the next few months, but America’s favorite 6’5″ nomad is also set to return in The Secret, the highly-anticipated new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child, available everywhere on October 24th.
Reacher, who first appeared in Lee Child’s 1997 thriller The Killing Floor, has since gone on to star in twenty-seven books to date on his way to becoming one of the most recognized names in fiction. The Secret is the fourth book co-authored by both Lee Child and his younger brother Andrew Child, who came on for The Sentinel back in 2020 after it was announced that he’d eventually be replacing Lee and taking over the series. That move has proven to be a hit, with Andrew helping to crank out three action-packed novels so far, including last year’s No Plan B, which was a massive hit with both critics and readers alike.
Though it’s technically the twenty-eighth book in the series, The Secret is set in 1992, making it a prequel novel. Chronologically speaking, and not counting short stories, The Secret falls somewhere between The Enemy (released in 2004) and Night School (published in 2016), or approximately five years before the events of The Killing Floor. With the Amazon show covering the events of Child’s first book in its debut season last year, the timing of The Secret makes a ton of sense. Newcomers to the series by way of the television show can jump in with this book and not miss a beat, while longtime fans will no doubt appreciate going back in time to learn even more about their favorite hero.
Check out the official plot details and cover art below!
The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child
1992. Eight respectable, upstanding people have been found dead across the US. These deaths look like accidents and don’t appear to be connected. Until one body – the victim of a fatal fall from a hospital window – generates some unexpected attention.
That attention comes from the Secretary of Defense, who promptly calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher is assigned as the Army’s representative.
Reacher may be an exceptional soldier, but sweeping other people’s secrets under the carpet isn’t part of his skill set. As he races to discover the link between these victims, and who killed them, he must navigate around the ulterior motives of his new ‘partners’. And all while moving into the sight line of some of the most dangerous people he has ever encountered.
His mission is to uncover the truth. The question is: will Reacher bring the bad guys to justice the official way . . . or his way?
Lee Child is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher series and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City and Wyoming
Andrew Child, who also writes as Andrew Grant, is the author of RUN, False Positive, False Friend, False Witness, Invisible, and Too Close to Home. Child and his wife, the novelist Tasha Alexander, live on a wildlife preserve in Wyoming. He is the #1 bestselling co-author of the Jack Reacher novels The Sentinel, Better Off Dead, and No Plan B.
Readers dying to read The Secret can now pre-order it here.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor and is building a growing community on Twitch. His debut thriller, FIELDS OF FIRE, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr says “will leave you speechless and begging for more,” is now available. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. And to take part in free, exclusive BOOK CLUBS each month, join The Real Book Spy on Discord.