The novels of Lee Child are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Lee Child
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Published in the United Kingdom as Reacher’s Rules by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, A Random House Group Company.
All photographs courtesy of Shutterstock, except for this page, which is courtesy of Wikipedia.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Child, Lee.
Jack Reacher's rules / with an introduction by Lee Child.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-345-54429-2
Ebook ISBN 978-0-345-54430-8
1. Reacher, Jack (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Ex-police officers—Fiction.
3. Police—Handbooks, manuals, etc.—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.H4838J33 2012
813'.54—dc23 2012038282
Compiled by Val Hudson
Designed by Nick Avery Design
Original research by Dot Youngs
Cover design and illustration: Carlos Beltrán
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
Jack Reacher, of no fixed address, is a former major in the U.S. Military Police. Since leaving the army, the authorities have not been able to locate his whereabouts, although his name mysteriously crops up from time to time in connection with investigations into murders, terrorist threats, and other breaches of the law.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction by LEE CHILD
Be Prepared
Breaking and Entering
Choose Your Weapons
The United States Army Military Police
The Rules of Coffee
Conquer Your Fear
Confronting Death
Cracking Codes and Passwords
Dogs
Fighting
Fighting Tips
Food
First Aid
Getting Mad
Hand-to-Hand Combat
How to Shake Hands
The Wimbledon Cup
Hitchhiking—the Rules
How to Extract Information
Know How to Find Your Way Around a City
West Point
Keep on the Move
Codes Used by the Military Police
Lessons Learned in the Military
Live off the Grid
Hogan’s Alley
On Walking Through a Thirty-Inch Doorway
How to Tell if They’re Lying
Learn to Read Their Body Language
Man Walks into a Bar—the Rules
A Medley of Military Acronyms
Respect Your Opponent
Noticing Stuff
The Twelve Signs of a Suicide Bomber
The U.S. Army Military Police Code of Ethics
Reacher’s Moral Code
Military Police Training
How to Open a Locked Iron Gate with a Chrysler
The Science of … The Perfect Shot
Personal Grooming
The Pentagon
Why It’s Not Smart to Have a Phone
Potential Aliases for Use When Booking a Motel
Use Your Wits—Psychology
Miranda
The Science of … Burning Down a Building
Sleep
Knowing the Time
Travel Light
What to Do in the Face of:
When to Speak
Blind Blake
How to Win the Battle
How to Win the War
Man’s Toys
Women
How to Sleep in a $350-a-Night Hotel Room for $50
How to Leave Town
INTRODUCTION
If you’ve been paying attention long enough, you know one thing for sure: the defining human characteristic is tribalism. We all slice and dice the world’s population into ever smaller fragments until we find a group where we feel comfortable, where we feel we truly belong.
And having arrived there, we make rules governing that group’s behavior. We want a reliable guide to how to act, we want to build bulwarks against outsiders, we want to provide a secure mechanism for belonging, we want to reassure ourselves that continuing membership is guaranteed if only we conform.
Some rules are official. We form clubs and societies and associations and give them procedures and bylaws more complex than those of government bodies.
Some rules are only semiofficial. Hit on your friend’s best girl? No way. Rat out an accomplice? Not going to happen. Break a strike? You’d rather die.
Some rules are just slogans, consoling and emboldening. Maybe as a kid, your gang—part of your street in part of your city in your country in the big, bewildering world—was, like kids are, told by your parents and teachers to be scared of strangers. No, you said. Strangers should be told to be scared of us.
Jack Reacher has always followed his own rules. He grew up in a fractured way, six months here, three months there, always moving, never stable, never belonging. Then he was a soldier, but too wise to buy into all the nonsense. He obeyed only the rules that made sense to him. Then he was cut loose and became a true outsider, profoundly comfortable with solitude. Does he have a tribe? You bet. He’s human. But in his case he kept on slicing and dicing until he got all the way down to a tribe with just one member—himself. But that tribe still needs rules, to guide, and embolden, and simplify, and reassure.
What follows are some of them.
LEE CHILD
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
Never count on anything except surprise and unpredictability and danger.
Ring doorbells with your knuckles or elbows to avoid leaving fingerprints.
Sit in diners or bars with your back to the wall so you cannot be surprised from behind.