‘Reacher’ Season 2: Everything we know about the new season, plus the 5 best ‘Jack Reacher’ books

Season 2 of Amazon Prime’s “Reacher” is set to premiere on Dec. 15. The second season, based on Lee Child’s 2007 novel “Bad Luck and Trouble,” will have eight episodes.

The first three episodes will be released on Dec. 15, and the rest will be released weekly until Jan. 19, Deadline reported.

The first season was Amazon’s “biggest show since this sort of thing started being tracked by third parties,” according to Forbes. Nielsen Media Research said in the show’s first week on Amazon Prime, it brought in 1.589 billion minutes of watch time.

What is the plot of ‘Reacher’ Season 2?

The second season of “Reacher” will be based on Child’s 2007 novel “Bad Luck and Trouble,” the 11th of his 29-novel series involving this character.

Penguin Random House describes the plot of this novel: “From a helicopter high above the California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night. On the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher is pulled out of his wandering life and plunged into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends ... and the people he once trusted with his life.

“Reacher is the ultimate loner — no phone, no ties, no address. But a woman from his old military unit has found him using a signal only the eight members of their elite team would know. Then she tells him a terrifying story about the brutal death of a man they both served with.

“Soon Reacher is reuniting with the survivors of his team, scrambling to unravel the sudden disappearance of two other comrades. But Reacher won’t give up — because in a world of bad luck and trouble, when someone targets Jack Reacher and his team, they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them.”

What are the best ‘Jack Reacher’ books?

Lee Child is nothing if not prolific. The British author has published 28 “Jack Reacher” books so far, with his 29th to be published in October 2024. “One Shot” and “Never Go Back” have been used for film adaptations starring Tom Cruise, and “Killing Floor” inspired the 2022 series “Reacher.”

Here are five of the best novels in the “Jack Reacher” series.

1. ‘Killing Floor’

Publication date: 1997.

This is Child’s first novel about Jack Reacher. Barnes & Noble describes the plot: “Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. Not in Margrave, Georgia.”

Notable quote: “Like when people say they slept like a baby. Do they mean they slept well? Or do they mean they woke up every ten minutes, screaming?”

2. ‘Tripwire’

Publication date: 1999.

“Tripwire” is the third book in Child’s series, and describes Reacher “settling into lazy Key West when his life is interrupted by a stranger who comes looking for him. When the stranger turns up beaten to death in the Old Town cemetery — fingertips removed — Reacher knows whomever the man was working for is not a friend. Reacher follows the trail to New York, where he confronts the people who dispatched the dead man: an elderly couple still mourning an all-American son lost in Vietnam; an alluring and intelligent woman from Reacher’s own haunted past; and at the center of the web, an opponent more vicious than any he’s ever faced,” Book Browse described.

The Book Blog Life wrote, “I don’t know what it was about this story in particular but everything seemed to be a little more realistic and I felt more connected to the people and the romance that takes place in this book.”

Notable quote: “People live, and then they die, and as long as they do both things properly, there’s nothing much to regret.”

3. ‘One Shot’

Publication date: 2005.

The plot of the ninth Jack Reacher novel was famously made into the “Jack Reacher” film starring Tom Cruise in 2012.

Dead End Follies describes the plot: “A sniper sent a midland city in panic by shooting five seemingly random citizens at 5 p.m. on a Friday. The evidence quickly leads to James Barr, an ex-army sniper with a mountain of problems. He is arrested, charged and beaten into a coma by Mexican people, in county jail. Before going under, he has one simple, yet mysterious request: ‘Get me Jack Reacher.’ Nobody is able to honor that request and find Reacher, but in good Chuck Norris fashion, Reacher finds them.”

Notable quote: “Human motivation is very complex. Most people don’t really know why they do things.”

4. ‘Worth Dying For’

Publication date: 2010.

“Worth Dying For” is the 15th book in Child’s series, and describes Reacher “stopping in an extremely remote part of Nebraska — so remote that the nearest civilization is 60 miles further south. The area is under the sinister control of the Duncan family, a clan that has the few residents so terrorized that they can do pretty much anything without consequence. When Eleanor Duncan, young Seth Duncan’s wife, calls the local doctor to help her after another beating, Reacher has to basically guilt the doctor into going out to her house,” Curled Up describes. Reacher ends up fighting with the Duncans and some international agents.

The Guardian described it as “an extremely enjoyable book which I and a number of other people would give 10 out of 10.”

Notable quote: “Lone women shouldn’t stop in the middle of nowhere for giant unkempt strangers with duct tape on their faces.”

5. ‘Echo Burning’

Publication date: 2001.

In Child’s fifth novel of the series, “Reacher is hitching through the heat of West Texas and getting desperate for a ride. The last thing he’s worried about is exactly who picks him up,” Book Browse describes. “She’s called Carmen. She’s a good-looking young woman, she has a beautiful little girl ... and she has married into the wrong family. They’re called the Greers. They’re a bitter and miserly clan, and they’ve made her life a living hell. Worse, her monster of a husband is soon due out of prison. So she needs protection, and she needs it now.”

Notable quote: “For a military cop, walking into a bar is like a batter stepping to the plate.”