Author’s Walter Mitty side inspires a series of gritty thrillers

In a nondescript diner, Lee Child sits watching the front door. His back is to a wall, his tall frame coiled into a booth. He seems alert, ready, waiting.

Except, as always, he’s a million miles away.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve lived in a fantasy world and made stuff up,” the British-born writer says. “I come to this diner to meet with you -- I’m not doing that. I’m in Budapest in 1956 rendezvousing with some undercover operative or something like that -- Walter Mitty stuff completely.”

If Child is slightly disappointed by the way this scene has actually unfolded, he hides it good-naturedly. Instead of a clandestine Budapest meeting, the 51-year-old author settles for a soda and a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon.

Child’s fantasy world has served him well: Each of his 10 thrillers featuring hero Jack Reacher has done better than the last, with the newest, “The Hard Way,” debuting at No. 3 on the New York Times’ Top 10 list and No. 2 on the Los Angeles Times’ Bestsellers list.

“A Reacher novel is the closest thing to guaranteed joy, short of a honeymoon,” the Rocky Mountain News cheered. The New York Times said the new book “takes off like a shot: As usual, Child has you at hello.”

If Child’s profile is rising, it’s because of the appeal of Reacher, an ex-military police officer who wanders America like a ronin with only the clothes on his back and a toothbrush, putting wrongs right and bad people in a great deal of pain.

Child’s new book, like the others, starts with a gripping first scene and quickly unfolds into a mix between a police procedural and a military thriller. “If there’s one thing that I do, I’m consistent,” says Child. “I’m not going to say whether the books are good or bad, because that’s not up to me, but at least they’re all the same.

“I learned a real great lesson when my daughter was a young kid. She would literally want the same story every night for extended periods. There’s something reassuring, comforting -- like putting on a favorite old sweater. So when you’re doing a long-range series, you’ve got to give them enough of the same so that they’re comfortable and enough difference so that they feel they’re moving ahead.”

Child was a TV director in England for 18 years until he was fired in 1995 at age 40, the result of corporate restructuring. Unsure of what to do, he turned to his inner Mitty -- James Thurber’s fictional, mild-mannered man driven by fantasy. “I’ve always been a writer except without the paperwork. That was my big epiphany,” Child says. “All of a sudden I thought, ‘Wait a minute, all you have to do is actually put this stuff down on paper and that is writing.’ ”

Armed with his TV experience in pacing stories, Child devised Reacher as a 6-foot-5, 250-pound cop who is downsized -- set adrift in an unfamiliar civilian world with noncivilian skills. He has no idea how to use a pay phone, but he’s proficient in Heckler & Koch G36 automatic rifles.

“This is really about the mysterious stranger who shows up in the nick of time and then disappears,” says Child, who moved with his wife to New York in 1998. “That has been around forever.”

Where other series writers might populate their books with a base of operations, he insists that each book take place in a different location and there be no recurring entanglements -- no friends, no favorite bar, no cute dog. “I voluntarily gave up soap opera strengths, which are numerous, in exchange for complete freedom,” Child says. “When I sit down and write, every Page 1 is a great adventure for me because I’ve got no clue where we’re going.”