Warning: Contains spoilers for Reacher season 1.
Amazon's Reacher was renewed for season 2 within days of its initial release and now plans to adapt one book per season. Reacher season 1 adapted Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, originally published in 1997 It's easy to imagine that Reacher might get the chance to adapt several books over the coming years. While the book to be adapted for Reacher season 2 has been announced, there are several books that would make sense to follow on as the series continues over the coming years.
In Reacher season 1, the Amazon series is relatively faithful to the original book consistently throughout, with only minor changes for the medium and the time. Reacher (Alan Ritchson) arrives in town on a Greyhound bus and is promptly arrested for a murder he couldn’t possibly have committed. After discovering the murdered man was his brother, Joe, Reacher goes on a vendetta to avenge his brother’s death and in doing so uncovers an international counterfeiting ring running through the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia. At the end of the story, he heads on down the road, leaving Margrave behind as he moves towards his next adventure.
The beginning and end of Reacher season 1 represent a theme that runs throughout most of the twenty-plus Jack Reacher novels that Lee Child has written, where Reacher arrives in town, is drawn into a mess, and then moves on as he continues to explore the country. This means that each Jack Reacher book is effectively episodic in nature and the plot of one book tends to have little effect on another. On occasions when taking a story out of order from the original series might mean that events play out in a different order, the team behind Amazon's Reacher have already proved that they can handle making changes appropriately. In Reacher season 1, the show introduced Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) five books early as she does not appear until Without Fail. The fact that this change to the story and characters was able to feel authentic was likely helped by the fact that Lee Child himself serves as an executive producer on the TV series and will likely have a hand in how the stories are changed to adapt to a new order. Reacher season 2 will adapt book 11, Bad Luck and Trouble, but the selection of novels that could take place after that in the Amazon adaptation is interesting. It is unlikely that any of the three prequel novels in which Jack Reacher is still in the military will be adapted as full seasons as the tone would be extremely different and the stories would likely serve best as flashbacks. Similarly, the show is unlikely to jump to the plots of the most recent books as Reacher is older (he is 60 in Better Off Dead, released in 2021) and has progressed more of a character as this would shut out some of the earlier plots. With that in mind, here are some of the best stories that Reacher can adapt after Killing Floor and why.
Jack Reacher Book 11: Bad Luck And Trouble
It has already been revealed that the TV series will adapt the eleventh Jack Reacher book by Lee Child, Bad Luck And Trouble, for Reacher season 2. The novel deals with Reacher’s old unit, the elite 110th Military Police Special Investigations Unit. After one of them is killed, Reacher and Neagley work together to find out who might have come after one of their team. They are able to bring more of the old crew back together but find that someone has been systematically taking out the retired members of the unit. Their investigation uncovers a spree of crimes but also helps Reacher examine who he is outside of himself.
Bad Luck and Trouble makes a lot of sense as a follow-up to Reacher season 1's previous book changes, as it brings back the recurring character of Frances Neagley, giving audiences more than just Alan Ritchson to recognize throughout the series. However, it also brings in the remains of the U.S. Army 110th MP Special Investigation Unit. In doing so, provides an opportunity to easily flesh out Reacher's on-screen back story by showing the people that he worked with. While Reacher is regularly tight-lipped as a protagonist and the books rely on narration to show what he's thinking, the Special Investigations Unit can help him to open up more. At the same time, the team's origins can be presented in flashbacks, much as Reacher's family life was in Reacher season 1.
Jack Reacher Book 2: Die Trying
In Die Trying, Reacher is in Chicago when he gets caught up with an FBI agent named Holly Johnson just as she is being kidnapped. Their new captors hope to be able to use Johnson as leverage to form their own country within the United States and Reacher is along for the ride. Unfortunately for Reacher, security footage of the kidnapping leads the FBI to think that he is working with the kidnappers, even when his old commanding officer, Leon Garber, is brought in to assure them that he isn’t.
Alan Ritchson himself had originally said that he would like to adapt Die Trying for Reacher season 2 and then continue through all the books in chronological order, having read and enjoyed all of them. It makes sense that Die Trying was ultimately passed over for Reacher season 2, as the book has a very different tone and pacing to Killing Floor, being more action-based and presented through the eyes of a third-person narrator rather than a first-person perspective like book 1. That might give the showrunners a hard time with adapting it for Reacher season 2; however, it has an interesting story, includes some key elements around the character of Leon Garber, and remains politically relevant, so it would be worth returning to later in the Reacher adaptation if possible.
Jack Reacher Book 3: Tripwire
In Tripwire, Reacher is minding his own business when a private investigator named Costello turns up trying to find him. Shortly afterward, Reacher finds Costello dead, and when he tracks down Costello’s client, he finds that it is the daughter of Leon Garber, who has recently passed away. The two begin working together on the final case that Garber had been tracking down, and the story takes them around the United States as they seek to right a wrong.
Like Killing Floor and Reacher season 1, Tripwire follows a more typical mystery structure than Die Trying, which has more thriller elements. Tripwire picks up some of the best elements from Lee Child’s first book, with Garber’s death providing an emotional anchor for Reacher in the case. Returning to this book later in Reacher could make the tie to Garber particularly strong if he is added in for Bad Luck and Trouble and appears in an adaptation of Die Trying. Tripwire would be a good fit for the vibe established in Reacher season 1, and the locations that he travels to could open up additional appearances from Neagley and even Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), who doesn’t appear after Killing Floor but does move to Boston at the end of Reacher season 1.
Jack Reacher Book 6: Without Fail
In Without Fail, Reacher is approached by an agent of the United States Secret Service, Mary Ellen Froelich, who asks for his help in protecting the Vice President-Elect. While Froelich at first implies that she just wants Reacher to test the security that exists so they can improve it, Reacher works out that there has been an attempt on the Vice President-Elect’s life and another is feared soon. He goes above and beyond as he works to solve the mystery of who the killers are and tracks them down.
Without Fail can add some additional political intrigue to Amazon's Reacher series that is often present in Lee Child’s books but was absent from Reacher season 1. The novel manages to blend thriller and mystery aspects in a way that will play to Alan Ritchson’s strengths. Ultimately, however, the best reason for adapting Without Fail is that it is the book that originally introduced Frances Neagley. By adapting Without Fail for a Reacher season, the series can fully explain the connection to Neagly and explore the history of her relationship with Reacher more than they can in an ensemble piece like Bad Luck and Trouble.
Jack Reacher Book 9: One Shot
One Shot opens not on Reacher, but on a sniper in a parking garage in Indiana. When a sniper fires into a crowd of people, he kills five people with six shots, and ample evidence is found at the scene implicating James Barr. Barr claims he is innocent and asks for Reacher’s help. Reacher is sure that Barr is guilty as he was released on a technicality after a similar incident during his military tenure ten years before. However, something doesn’t sit right and Reacher’s investigation once again finds a deeper conspiracy at work.
Reacher could do well to adapt One Shot one day as it is one of Lee Child’s most thoughtful mysteries that sees Reacher working against his own instincts to solve a case. However, there is another reason that it might be an interesting book for Reacher to adapt with Alan Ritchson in the lead. One Shot is the novel that was adapted for the first of the two movies in the previous Jack Reacher adaptation. The films were not entirely faithful to the book, and while Tom Cruise held his own as an actor, he did not embody the character of Jack Reacher in the way that many fans wish he could have. Adapting One Shot in Reacher at some point after Bad Luck and Trouble in season 2 could give Ritchson a fun chance to prove he is the one true Jack Reacher.