Lee Child is the best-selling author of 17 Jack Reacher novels. Jack Reacher, the movie based on the book One Shot, will be released on DVD May 7. Below, Child recommends six debut novels that led to greater things.
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (Thomas & Mercer, $15). Fleming was disillusioned after World War II and had a girlfriend who was pregnant, which back then meant a reluctant marriage. So he briefly escaped to Jamaica and wrote a spy novel he didn’t think was very good. But a publisher took a chance, and James Bond became an icon. What if there’d been no pregnancy?
The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald (Random House, $16). MacDonald, also restless after the war, broke away from his prosperous background to become a prodigious pulp wordsmith—Westerns, sci-fi, anything to pay the rent. Until, in the early ’60s, he dreamed up a leathery boat bum named McGee and launched one of the greatest series ever. What if MacDonald had gone to work for GM?
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