Lee Child has handed the Jack Reacher book franchise over to his brother, leaving many readers angry – and he’s now addressed the furious backlash.

Since 1997, the British author has written 30 novels focused on the hulking action hero and co-authored six with his sibling, Andrew Grant, before retiring and giving him full creative control of the best-selling series.

However, despite the books co-written with Grant being a success, Child – real name James Grant – said that long-time Reacher fans have been “funny” about the development.

“They believe Reacher is their property and anybody who messes with him is messing with their thing,” he said in a new interview. “So there’s been a bit of grumpiness from some of the readers simply because something has changed. But other than that I think it’s been fairly seamless.”

He told The Times: “Stieg Larsson wrote three books in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series before he died. Then a fourth one was ghostwritten from Sweden by David Lagercrantz. I was asked by The New York Times to review that. I became fascinated to what degree does the identity of the author matter? My conclusion was you can get away with it if you’re careful.”

Child’s name appears with his brother’s pen name, Andrew Child, on the book covers after “toying with the idea of having no author’s name on the book at all”, which he said looked too “weird”.

The Reacher franchise was adapted into two Tom Cruise films – Jack Reacher in 2012 and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back in 2016 – and is currently a hit Prime Video series starring Alan Ritchson.

In 2025, Child told The Independent that readers were right to disapprove of Cruise’s casting as the character; many didn’t think the Hollywood star was right for the role due to his height. In Child’s books, Reacher is described as being “extremely tall” (he’s 6ft, 5in), and “extremely broad, long-armed and long-legged”. In real life, Cruise is 5ft, 7in.

Child said that, while he “liked” working with Cruise, “the readers, ultimately, were right” in their views.

“I thought the first movie in particular was excellent. It was a really crisp hard-edged thriller. Working with Tom was a pleasure and a privilege – he’s a really smart guy, he’s a smart filmmaker, he’s real fun. But you cannot escape the fact that Reacher is a huge guy.”

He added: “I mean, that is a component in his entire approach to the world and the world’s approach to him. He’s huge, he’s implacable, he’s scary, and for all Tom’s ability in getting the internals of Reacher out, he is not huge and he’s not scary. So the readers were terribly upset about it and I think, ultimately, the readers were right.”

The author thinks they have struck gold with Ritchson, who is returning to play the role in a fourth season based on Child’s 13th Reacher book Gone Tomorrow. According to the author: “Alan was born to play Reacher and I think he knows that.”

Elsewhere in his new interview, Child criticised another book series-turned-action franchise that has been taken over by Amazon: James Bond. He said Amazon’s purchase of 007 was “interesting” because he feels the character is “word out” and “still has distinctly postwar roots”, which he said “needs to move on”.