Reacher's Creator Made The Revenge-Fueled Hero's Mother French For One Simple Reason

"Reacher" might be one of the best Amazon TV shows ever made, but it's nothing compared to the success of the books: British author Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" novels have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide.

Although the sheer entertainment value of the books is obvious, Child deployed a narrative tactic to try and make the franchise more popular in one particular country. By making Reacher's mother, Josephine, French, he hoped that it would push European readers to pick up more copies of his work. "I had heard the French are notoriously closed to external imports for fiction," Child told the "Page One" podcast, "so I thought, 'Well I'll give him a French mother,' because I wanted to emphasise his rootlessness, his international background ... I thought, 'I'll make her French, so at least they'll buy them in France!"

Reacher's mother, Josephine, made it into the first season of the live-action series, in which she's played by Leslie Fray. Before Josephine dies in Episode 8, she gives Reacher his grandfather's World War II medal for "bravery in the face of danger," and reminds him to always do what's right.

Josephine first appears in 2004's "The Enemy," Child's eighth Jack Reacher novel. The story finds Reacher working for the military police in 1990, when he's told that his mother has died of cancer in Paris. Unfortunately for Child's book sales, Josephine's introduction didn't ignite a new reader base in France. In fact, he called it the "hugest failure" of his career.

"I sell for s*** in France," he told "Page One." "I've had the long explanations from French publishers about it, how it's very genre categorized in France. They love Westerns, they love this and that, but somehow Reacher falls between all the cracks."

It might not have been a winning-strategy, but Josephine's background did lead to some fascinating character development for the show's hero. While the Alan Ritchson series makes minor changes to the source material — meaning "Reacher" Season 4 book spoilers are already available — the way it faithfully adapted Josephine's story gave the lead some much-needed depth, proving that he's more than just a man-mountain who punches his way through problems. Jack Reacher has dealt with plenty of loss and pain over the years, but the relationship with his mother shaped his constant pursuit of justice.