There's only one man I am more in love with than Jack Reacher, and that's Joe Pike. I think I may have a type when it comes to my crushes on literary characters - a bit moody, quiet, devastatingly attractive and massive.


I definitely have a thing for big men, which helps explain why I lust after a fictional character, but Reacher is much more than just a crush. Lee Child has created an action hero who The Times once described as "a thinking girl's beefcake". Not only is he completely irresistible, he's also incredibly likeable. He's one of the good guys, he uses his brain as much as he uses his brawn, but therein lies the issue. Without his brawn, who is he?

That's not to say a much smaller guy than Reacher can't make a great action hero, but it's not Reacher. Jack Reacher is 6'5", 220-250lbs, 50" chest, 95cm inside leg and wears a 3XLT coat. Those aren't things I've inferred from the narrative, those are offered as fact on a plethora of occasions throughout the Reacher series and are printed in the front of the more recent novels in the form of Reacher's CV.

So on what level is Reacher's size supposed to be metaphorical? This is the excuse Lee Child has given in trying to justify the casting of Tom Cruise for the role. While I appreciate that fans of books are often not satisfied with casting choices when their favourite characters are transferred to film, casting possibly the smallest Hollywood actor for the role of probably one of the biggest characters in recent fiction is just plain dumb.

Child is right when he says there are now two different audiences: the book readers and the film goers, because once you strip Reacher's size from every altercation, from every personal interaction, from his backstory, from every time he turns up in a new town and has to buy clothes, Reacher is no longer there. So the "Reacher" the film goers see, will not be the Reacher that I fell head over heels in love with, who made Lee Child the success that he is. It will be an empty shell who sold his soul to Hollywood.