He received a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Sheffield in 1977 and returned to the university to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) in 2009. After graduating, he worked in commercial television.

In 1974, at the age of 20, Grant studied law at University of Sheffield, though he had no intention of entering the legal profession and, during his student days, worked backstage in a theatre. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham. Grant attended Cherry Orchard Primary School in Handsworth Wood until the age of 11. Grant's family relocated to Handsworth Wood in Birmingham when he was four years old so that the boys could receive a better education. He is the second of four sons his younger brother, Andrew Grant, is also a thriller novelist. His Northern Irish father, who was born in Belfast, was a civil servant who lived in the house where the singer Van Morrison was later born. His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel. The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. James Dover Grant CBE (born 29 October 1954), primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series. Jack Reacher has been turned into a film and is also reportedly being made into a series for Amazon’s Prime service.Īccording to the Times’ report, the cover of the next Reacher novel – in a series which is published by an imprint of Random Penguin House – will read: “Lee Child with Andrew Child”, in what has been interpreted as a possible sign of the publishing company’s nerves.Recorded December 2013 from the BBC Radio 4 programme Bookclub And I know he’s now in safe hands.”Ĭhild has sold more than 100m books since embarking on a career as a novelist relatively late in life at 40. He added: “Readers don’t need to know about me or whoever writes the books. “It’s not as if I twisted his arm into doing it. Grant is an established author in his own right. It would take an army to bring him down Reacher had to have an afterlife after I was done,” Child told the Times.

First of all, I thought he would go out in a blaze of bullets, something like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “For years I thought about different ways of killing Reacher off. But Child, who was born James Grant, has reportedly set out a condition for his brother: he too must change his surname to Child.

Personal by Lee Child