Past Tense: (Jack Reacher 23)

From number one bestseller Lee Child, the thrilling new blockbuster featuring hero Jack Reacher.

Jack Reacher plans to follow the autumn sun on an epic road trip across America, from Maine to California. He doesn’t get far. On a country road deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been - the town where his father was born. He thinks, what’s one extra day? He takes the detour.

At the very same moment, close by, a car breaks down. Two young Canadians are trying to get to New York City to sell a treasure. They're stranded at a lonely motel in the middle of nowhere. It’s a strange place... but it’s all there is.

The next morning in the city clerk's office, Reacher asks about the old family home. He’s told no one named Reacher ever lived in that town. He knows his father never went back. Now he wonders, was he ever there in the first place?

So begins another nail-biting, adrenaline-fuelled adventure for Reacher. The present can be tense, but the past can be worse. That’s for damn sure.

Waterstones have been following the nail-biting exploits of Jack Reacher since he first loped into town in Killing Floor in 1997, a striking figure standing at 6ft5 all dirty-blond hair, with a chip on his shoulder and a lethal ability. His creator Lee Child lays claim to the fact that every second somewhere in the world somebody buys one of his novels.

He starts every new novel on the same date, the 1st September and has managed to keep fans coming back for more every time, he says of thriller-writing ‘It's the only real genre and all the other stuff has grown on the side of it like barnacles’.