Persuader

The seventh novel in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series is told in the first person by Reacher, an elite former military cop who left the service and now moves from place to place without family or possessions. Ten years earlier an investigation went sour, and Francis Xavier Quinn, the worst man Reacher had ever met, got away with murder. Reacher believed Quinn was dead. Then, outside Symphony Hall in Boston, he spots the man very much alive riding in a limousine. Chasing that unfinished business pulls Reacher into an unofficial drug investigation. The question the story poses is whether his pursuit counts as vengeance, redemption or justice.

Andre Chaperon, an entrepreneur and writer, said it was the first proper fiction book he read and that Lee Child's Reacher novels shaped his writing style more than anything else. Louis Grenier, host of Everyone Hates Marketers, recommends the Reacher thrillers for the storytelling lessons marketers can borrow.