James said Andrew had transformed the series into a more 21st century affair than he had been capable of himself, but that the brothers had collaborated well on the new book. 'But no one has ever handed to baton from one living writer to another, particularly not his own brother.'

'Part of what we're doing is completely unique because there have been plenty of occasions where an author has died and a few years later his estate has contacted somebody to see if they'd be interested in continuing the series that had laid dormant for a few years. 'The truth is no one made me do it,' he said. He had read all of books from the series and was in tune with his brother's thought processes and what made Jack Reacher special. 'It's the only thing that ever annoyed me about writing, it takes a lot of time away from reading,' he said.įor Andrew, the move was unique and said it was important for fans to know that his brother had passed on the project to someone authentically close to the character. James said retirement would bring opportunities to simply do nothing but read the books he never had time to look at in the past, and enjoy doing so. Andrew being a writer, he's very similar to me, we're similar people, I thought he's the only chance for this.' 'But there are so many Reacher fans around the world - and especially in New Zealand, as we know - that I thought 'I can't do that to people, you got to find a different solution'. I can sense that coming up, so I thought I better do something about it and normally I guess the thing to do would have been to finish the series and say 'that's it'.

'So, what I've always tried to do is be aware of 'when am I losing it' and is the culture moving ahead without me. 'I don't want to be the embarrassing guy that sticks around for a season too long - or in showbiz, if you're past the sell-by-date and you're still onstage, well, that's no good. 'I've always tried to be incredibly self-aware, like an athlete,' James told RNZ's Sunday Morning.

Jack reacher lee child