The second season of the Amazon hit show “Reacher” is coming to a close soon and the popularity of Jack Reacher is growing faster than ever. Many people who are watching have never read the original books but are now interested in reading them. As a big Jack Reacher fan I would say to read them all in order starting with the first book. However, if you don’t want to read them all and just want an introduction to the Jack Reacher universe, I would advise starting with these five. These 5 books give a good introduction to how Reacher operates and thinks and the stories are very exciting.
Each book here has a link to purchase it on Amazon and if you click on one of these links and buy a book, I will earn some money from my affiliate link.
Jack Reacher is a former US Army Military Police Officer who was also the head of the 110th Special Investigators unit. His history in the Army is mentioned in almost every book and a few books in the series are “flashback” novels which tells more of when Reacher was in the Army. After leaving the Army (which is talked about in the 16th book, The Affair), he basically decides just to walk around the big land of the USA and see everything that he always wanted to see. He doesn’t have a home. He buys new clothes every few days and usually just carries his passport and a toothbrush. Reacher roams around taking odd jobs. He’ll arrive in a random town, come across someone who needs his help, solve a mystery and take out the bad guys, and then get on the next bus out of town. Reacher is never looking for trouble, but trouble always finds him.
This list is no particular order. I also am not including any of the books used for the 2 seasons of the TV Show so far or the books used for the Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movies.
Make Me (Book 20) – https://amzn.to/48vMHyr
Reacher gets off a train at a remote railroad station on the prairie with the curious name of Mother’s Rest. He expects to find a thousand square miles of wheat fields. But instead there is a worried woman who mistakes him for someone else: her partner in a private investigation. Reacher’s one-day stop becomes a quest into the most hidden reaches of the internet.
61 Hours (Book 14) – https://amzn.to/3O45l8x
A bus full of elderly people and Reacher crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation and freezing temps. In nearby Bolton, South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by evil forces. If she’s going to live long enough to testify, she’ll need help. Because a killer is coming to Bolton and Jack Reacher is the only one who can stop it.
Personal (Book 19) – https://amzn.to/3SsXOTn
Jack Reacher is roaming around America when the army tracks him down. Because someone has taken a long-range shot at the French president and only one man could have done it. And Reacher is the one man who can find him. The hunt for the sniper takes Reacher across the Atlantic to Paris – and then to London. He must track down a killer with a treacherous vendetta. The stakes have never been higher.
The Hard Way (Book 10) – https://amzn.to/48zTnvn
While soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, Jack Reacher watches a man cross the street to a parked car and drive it away. The car contains a million dollars of ransom money. Reacher’s job is to make sure the money’s paid, the family safely returned. But Reacher is in the middle of a nasty little war where nothing is simple. What started on a busy New York street explodes three thousand miles away, in the sleepy English countryside.
The Affair (Book 16) – https://amzn.to/3TWCWF7
Six months before the events in Killing Floor, Major Jack Reacher of the US Military Police goes undercover in Mississippi, to investigate a murder. This is one of the flashback novels which tells the story of Reacher when he is in the US Army.
