Jack Reacher has never needed apps, artificial intelligence, GPS, or even a permanent address to solve a problem. For three decades, Lee Child’s iconic former military policeman has relied on his instincts, intelligence, and fists to get the job done. But the world has changed since Reacher first arrived in Margrave, and his newest adventure throws him into a battle against a very different kind of enemy.
In Chain Reaction, the latest novel in the bestselling thriller series, Andrew Child places Reacher in the middle of a story involving artificial intelligence, massive data centers, and powerful tech figures. Despite the modern setting, the authors insist the book isn’t really about explaining AI itself. Instead, it’s about how technology reflects human behavior.
“With Chain Reaction, obviously, the technology is pretty central, but not really from a technical point of view,” Andrew Child explained. “We don’t really delve into how any of that stuff works, or where its boundaries are, what it can do, what it should do, what it shouldn’t do. We haven’t gone down that road, really. We’ve used it more as a mirror that reflects the way that humans behave to one another. Are people being greedy? Are they cheating? Things like that.”
According to Andrew Child, artificial intelligence has become too important to ignore when writing stories set in today’s world. He believes Reacher couldn’t realistically pretend AI doesn’t exist, even if it’s something the character has no interest in embracing.
“AI is out there. It’s a huge deal. So we had to acknowledge it. We couldn’t have Reacher just pretending it doesn’t exist. It would be like pretending cars don’t exist, or airplanes or something. We had to at least have it acknowledged as a thing that is there in his world, and it introduced a lot of good opportunities for him to deal with bad people in the way that we love Reacher dealing with them.”
Andrew also made it clear that Reacher’s dislike of technology shouldn’t be mistaken for ignorance. The character fully understands modern tools but simply doesn’t see why people feel the need to depend on them.
The thing is, he doesn’t understand why anybody would [use AI.] You look at Facebook and see somebody posting a picture of the sandwich they had for lunch, and all these replies. That is what Reacher would be bamboozled by,” he said. “How on earth is this interesting? How on earth is this worth your time when there are so many better things to do?
He continued by explaining that Reacher values freedom above everything else and sees technology as something that ties people down rather than setting them free.
It’s not how to use it that’s a mystery to him. It’s why on earth people want to. Why do they want to be tethered? He spends his whole time being free and being unencumbered by stuff. So why would you want an invisible leash connected to you?
Lee Child believes Chain Reaction also reminds readers of one of Reacher’s defining qualities that can sometimes be overshadowed by the action: his remarkable detective skills. While many fans focus on his physical strength, Lee argues that Reacher’s greatest weapon has always been his mind.
“I definitely think so. I think mental processes are actually more, or possibly just as much, his physical power. That goes all the way back, really, to Sherlock Holmes, because everybody has seen Sherlock Holmes on TV or in the movies. Relatively fewer people have read him, and if you return to the original Conan Doyle texts, Sherlock Holmes is obviously a tremendous thinker, but also very, very physical. Sherlock Holmes in the books is a fighter. He’s a street fighter. He knows what to do. And so Reacher is a kind of updated version of that. Both sides of the coin. There’s a Spanish journalist who invented a pun in a foreign language. This Spanish journalist calls Reacher ‘Sherlock Homeless,’ which sort of sums him up. The reader gets the fascination in the deduction, as well as the sense of vicarious empowerment in being physically unchallengeable.”
Although Chain Reaction revolves around artificial intelligence, Lee Child said he was especially fascinated by the enormous physical infrastructure that powers modern AI systems.
“I love the way that this came out to be AI,” Lee said. “It fascinates me about AI because it’s all sort of virtual, it’s all software, but it has the most immense physical requirements. These massive data centers. Water, power, acreage — it’s an immensely physical thing, not just virtual.”
Andrew Child added that Reacher’s old-school investigative instincts actually give him an advantage in this kind of story because he naturally looks for physical explanations before digital ones.
“It seemed very suitable for Reacher. His default position is analogue, and so he’s not going to be thinking in terms of IP this and gigabyte that. His natural outlook, and all those years of experience as an investigator before this technology came along, means the idea of something being physically stolen is much more likely to occur to him than any of these technological things.”
Chain Reaction arrives on October 20, introducing Jack Reacher to one of the most modern challenges of his career while staying true to the qualities that have defined the character for the past 30 years.
