What book is Reacher Season 3 based on?

Reacher Season 3 is officially happening. So, which of Lee Child’s books is the Prime Video show’s third season based on?

Fans began speculating on Season 3’s inspiration before Season 2 was even finished. They had their work cut out for them too, as the show doesn’t follow the release order or in-universe chronology of its source material.

While Season 1 did indeed adapt Book 1, Killing Floor, Season 2 jumped ahead to Book 11, Bad Luck and Trouble. As such, all of Lee Child’s 26 remaining novels were possible Season 3 contenders.

Fortunately, Amazon Studios has finally set the record straight. So, read on to find out what book Reacher Season 3 is based on!

What book is Reacher Season 3 based on?

Reacher Season 3 is based on Lee Child’s seventh Jack Reacher novel, Persuader.

Per Variety, the third season’s logline reads as follows: “Reacher must go undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past.”

This broadly tracks with Persuader’s official synopsis, as featured on the 2003 tome’s jacket:

“Jack Reacher lives for the moment. Without a home. Without commitment. And with a burning desire to right wrongs – and rewrite his own agonizing past. DEA Susan Duffy is living for the future, knowing that she has made a terrible mistake by putting one of her own female agents into a death trap within a heavily guarded Maine mansion.

“Staging a brilliant ruse, Reacher hurtles into the dark heart of a vast criminal enterprise. Trying to rescue an agent whose time is running out, Reacher enters a crime lord’s waterfront fortress. There he will find a world of secrecy and violence – and confront some unfinished business from his own past.”

Variety also confirmed that Jack Reacher’s (Alan Ritchson) old ally Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) is back in Season 3. It’s worth noting that while Neagley is indeed a recurring character in Child’s novels, she doesn’t appear in Persuader. This is therefore the first confirmed departure between the third season and its source material, with others likely to follow.

Reacher Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Prime Video, which you can sign up for here.

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