Lee Child - Second Son

Praise for #1 Bestselling author Lee Child and his Reacher Series

Lee Child [is] the current poster-boy of American crime fiction.

Los Angeles Times

Jack Reacher is a tough guys tough guy.

Santa Monica Mirror

Like his hero Jack Reacher, Lee Child seems to make no wrong steps.

Associated Press

Jack Reacher is one of the best thriller characters at work today.

Newsweek

Reacher is Marlowes literary descendant, and a 21st-century knightonly tougher.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Child has long been one of the best contemporary thriller writers.

The Daily Beast

That this Reacher is so effortlessly larger than life is evidence of how intense the overall series has become.

Janet Maslin, The New York Times

No one kicks butt as entertainingly as Reacher.

Kirkus Reviews

Praise forWORTH DYING FOR

At times here, he channels Hemingway, which makes a certain sense, since Reacher is nothing if not a chiseled Hemingway hero without the self-pity. He still channels the tough-guy prose as well as anybody alive. This series is as good as pop fiction gets.

Miami Herald

A master craftsman of action thrillers. More than just compulsively readable, Mr. Childs work shows a perfectly-fashioned understanding of his protagonist, dogged and moralistic. Reacher may get old some time, but hes sure not showing any signs of it.

The Wall Street Journal

Dont pick up the latest Jack Reacher novel if you dont have some time on your hands, because Worth Dying For is difficult to put down. Child manages to get an amazing amount of suspense into the novel.

Associated Press

Praise for61 HOURS

Childs writing is superb. Not only is this thriller believable, but the descriptions of the blizzard will make readers want to hug their furnaces. Fast paced and exciting, this is highly recommended for thriller fans.

Library Journal (starred review)

Child keeps his foot hard on the throttle. As always, Child delivers enough juicy details about the landscape, the characters, and Reachers idiosyncrasies to give the story texture and lower our pulse rates, if only momentarily. This is Child in top form, but isnt he always?

Booklist (starred review)

Jack Reacher is much more like the heir to the Op and Marlowe than Spenser ever was. Reacher is as appealingly misanthropic as ever.

Esquire

Praise forGONE TOMORROW

Hold on tight. This is No. 13 in Lee Childs action-packed series starring ex-military cop / pit bull Jack Reacher, and it may be the best. this novel will give you whiplash as you rabidly turn pages, packed with layers of intrigue, murder, deceit and mystery.

USA Today

Thriller fans like books that start on the first page. This newest page-turner from Lee Child starts with the first sentence. Child really is that good at heroic suspense writing.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Child is famous for his cant-catch-your-breath openings, and Gone Tomorrow features one of his most provocative edgy, nerve-wracking and thoroughly engrossing, Gone Tomorrow is so insanely fast paced that its simply over too soon.

The Miami Herald

Praise forNOTHING TO LOSE

Electrifying utterly addictive dazzles. Not for nothing has the cover art of his recent books depicted a bulls-eye.

The New York Times

Explosive and nearly impossible to put down.

People, Sizzling Summer Reads

Childs hard-boiled meal ticket shows no signs of drying up anytime soon. Thank goodness.

Entertainment Weekly (A-)

Praise forBAD LUCK AND TROUBLE

Electrifying A top-tier Reacher book.

Janet Maslin, The New York Times

As always, the action is intense, the pace unrelenting, and the violence unforgiving. Child remains the reigning master at combining breakneck yet brilliantly constructed plotting with characters who continually surprise us with their depth.

Booklist (starred review)

Perhaps there are action-lit writers more recognizable than Child, but the bet is that none of them will turn in a tighter-plotted, richer-peopled, faster-paced page-turner this year.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Praise forTHE HARD WAY

The best thriller writer of the moment.

The New York Times

Jack Reacher, the tough-minded hero of a series of bestselling noir thrillers, has all the elements that have made this genre so popular among men for decades. He travels the country dispensing his own form of justice, often violently and without remorse. Reacher is doing something surprising: winning the hearts of many women readers.

The Wall Street Journal

Praise forONE SHOT

Ranks in the first tier Before its all, vividly, over, one feels confident that Reachersmart, rootless, and bravewill not only get his man but make him suffer.

The New Yorker

By Lee Child

Killing Floor

Die Trying

Tripwire

Running Blind

Echo Burning

Without Fail

Persuader

The Enemy

One Shot

The Hard Way

Bad Luck and Trouble

Nothing to Lose

Gone Tomorrow

61 Hours

Worth Dying For

And look for

THE AFFAIR

Coming in hardcover and eBook
September 2011 from Delacorte Press

Second Son is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

2011 Delacorte Press eBook Original

Copyright 2011 by Lee Child
Excerpt from The Affair 2011 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.

D ELACORTE P RESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-52972-5

Cover design: Carlos Beltran

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

On a hot August Thursday in 1974, an old man in Paris did something he had never done before: he woke up in the morning, but he didnt get out of bed. He couldnt. His name was Laurent Moutier, and he had felt pretty bad for ten days and really lousy for seven. His arms and legs felt thin and weak and his chest felt like it was full of setting concrete. He knew what was happening. He had been a furniture repairman by trade, and he had become what customers sometimes brought him: a wormy old heirloom weakened and rotted beyond hope. There was no single thing wrong with him. Everything was failing all at once. Nothing to be done. Inevitable. So he lay patient and wheezing and waited for his housekeeper.