Die Trying was published by Putnam in 1998, the second Jack Reacher novel. The premise exemplifies Child’s ability to generate tension from Reacher’s core situation: a man of extraordinary capability in a confined space with people who have vastly underestimated him.
Reacher is walking down a Chicago street when he helps a woman with a broken crutch carry her dry cleaning. A van pulls up; men with guns push them both inside. The woman is Holly Johnson, an FBI agent and the daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She’s been kidnapped by a Montana militia group led by Beau Borken, a charismatic survivalist who plans to use her as leverage for his separatist compound’s independence from the United States.
The militia members see Reacher as a nuisance, an accidental witness to be dealt with later. They do not understand what they have: a man who spent thirteen years investigating violent crimes in the military, who can shoot with sniper precision, who has the close-combat skills of special forces, and who — crucially — has no institutional constraints, no rules of engagement, no requirement to take prisoners.
Child structures the novel as slow compression: the journey to Montana, the days in the compound, the careful observation and planning, the mounting tension as Reacher identifies the compound’s weaknesses — all building toward the explosive decompression of the final act, where Reacher’s violence is unleashed in full.
Collecting Die Trying
First edition (Putnam, New York, 1998): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First US edition in dust jacket: $40–$120
- Signed first edition: $100–$300
- UK first (Bantam Press, 1998): $30–$80