For the legions of fans that look forward to the annual ‘Jack Reacher fix’ it will come as no surprise that Lee Child is to honoured with the Crime Writers Association life time achievement award for a body of work, the Diamond Dagger for 2013.
Chair of the CWA Peter James said: “I am delighted that the CWA has chosen Lee Child as this year’s recipient. Lee is one of the few British crime thriller authors to have become a global brand name; he is also an extremely charming and open person and a tireless promoter of our genre.”
I remember buying some copies of the first edition of the Killing Floor in 1997 to offer to my customers and they sold very well. As Peter James says Lee Child is one of the few British crime thriller writers to become a global brand name. He did this by launching himself as an American thriller writer: not a with procedural or a mystery or any of the other cluttered sub-genres, but with a tall ex-army guy that gets involved in 
scrapes and other people’s trouble. The guy is on the move in each story, and the Child series allows him to take in much of interest in modern and not so-modern American culture. It is to his great credit that he has sustained interest in the Jack Reacher series for 16 years and as a note of recognition of his stature he was recently asked by the Mystery Writers of America to edit and compile the annual anthology of new short stories. Such an honour is reserved for a handful of writers.
Lee has not yet agreed to be one of the authors in the series, but his precise and insightful appreciations of Ian Rankin in Fleshmarket Close and Dennis Lehane in Given Day have enhanced our collectible volumes; as did his short story in the anthology signed by all the contributors Like A Charm.
Congratulations once again Lee.
