With over two dozen novels in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book series, the producers of Amazon Prime’s smash hit series success “Reacher” have plenty of options to choose from for subsequent seasons of the series.
While the first season was a quite loyal adaptation of the first published novel “Killing Floor,” the books by their nature are episodic and standalone with Jack Reacher himself essentially being the only real regular character.
As a result, there’s no obligation on the part of showrunner Nick Santora to adapt the second book “Die Trying” as the next season. In fact, speaking with TVLine this week, Santora cautions fans not to assume they have to strictly follow the order of the books:
“It’s tough. There are 26 [Jack Reacher] books, and then there are short-story anthologies…. And there’s so much thought that has to go into our decision. Do we want it to be similar to Season 1, because Season 1 was successful? Do we want to go a little different?
Lee Child has set up stories in small towns, in big cities… in the United States, and stories that take us to Europe…. There’s a plethora to select from. It’s just a question of everyone putting their heads together, talking it out and deciding what would be fun for fans. The good news is you can pick almost anything and you’re going to have a good story.
I will say this: Don’t assume we’re going chronologically, and don’t assume we’re not going chronologically. Because [at this moment] we legitimately don’t know.”
Previously the series’ lead Alan Ritchson expressed a preference to follow the book order. The 9th (“One Shot”) and 18th (“Never Go Back”) books were already adapted as the Tom Cruise films while the 8th (“The Enemy”), 21st (“Night School”) and 16th (“The Affair”) novels respectively are prequels to the events of the first novel while Reacher is still in the army.
The TV series made one key change by bringing in the recurring character of Neagley early as she doesn’t appear until the sixth book, so the producers are open to some changes. Along with “Killing Floor” and “One Shot,” the 15th novel “Worth Dying For” often sits around the top of polls as the best of the novels.
