LEE CHILD (b.1954)
Killing Floor. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1997.
‘I remember most of it pretty well […] and partly I know it by reputation by now, in a strangely circular experience’: after 25 years, Lee Child returns to the very first novel in his best-selling Jack Reacher series. In an opening inscription, signed and dated 2021, the author wonders what he will make of his debut book; happily, in the inscription added to close, he can conclude, re-reading after all this time: ‘It’s much better than I feared’. This copy of the first US edition is annotated with 772 words in pencil across 54 pages: passages are marked ‘nice’ on more than one occasion or points of stylistic criticism added, but Child goes further, offering insights into how certain events in the novel mirrored his own experiences, even noting how a description of a character’s teeth prompted a long correspondence with a dental hygienist in California. Killing Floor won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel; it was the first appearance in print of Jack Reacher, played by Tom Cruise in film adaptations of two of the 26 novels published to date.

Octavo. Original card covers, pictorial dust jacket (edges and spine a little bumped).

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