Reacher doesn’t read poetry, but he’ d certainly agree with a sentiment expressed in one of Rudyard Kipling’s works: “Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, / He travels the fastest who travels alone.”
A lifelong bachelor, Reacher stays free of romantic entanglements on a long-term basis. There have been women, though, with whom he’s had professional relationships; and in some instances, the relationships become personal.
Here are some of the femmes (and one femme fatale) in his life.
General Garber’s daughter, Jodie Garber-Jacob, was smitten with Reacher at an early age, when she was only fifteen years old. (We don’t know Reacher’s age at the time, but we know he was a commissioned officer at the time and at least twenty-one years old.) In time, though, the age difference became a non-issue; and in Tripwire, after her father dies, she and Reacher become personally involved. She shows up in Running Blind and Echo Burning.
By far the most interesting long-term relationship Reacher enjoys is with a former Military Police colleague, MSG Frances Neagley. It’s a strictly platonic relationship.
Neagley has haphephobia, a fear of being touched. (Some of its symptoms include trembling, breathlessness, panic, dizziness, dry mouth, and palpitations.)
After she left the MPs, Neagley became a security consultant for a private firm, which has paid off splendidly for her: She’s wealthy.
In terms of skills, she’s a female counterpart of Reacher: technically and tactically proficient, she’s deadly.
In Bad Luck and Trouble, she’s obviously good luck: When Reacher and three of his former Army buddies (including Neagley) join forces to solve homicides involving others with whom they served on active duty, Neagley bankrolls the operation because only she can afford to do so.
She also appears in Without Fail and The Affair.
Karla Dixon rounds out the list. A former Army major, she and Reacher shared intimate feelings but did not act on them while they were serving together as part of a special investigations team. A forensic accountant, her skills are especially useful in Bad Luck and Trouble in identifying financial irregularities in the paperwork they unearthed at New Age Defense Systems, a shady military contractor.
Reacher likes women who are competent, professionals in their field, and tough. If they’re in uniform, so much the better—he’s got a sweet spot in his heart for uniformed women who pack heat and know how to handle themselves.
Alice Amanda Aaron (Echo Burning). A Harvard Law School graduate who hails from a wealthy family, she’s forgone a lucrative career with a big law firm to work with the indigent in Pecos, Texas. Initially, she declines to represent Carmen Greer, who is under arrest for suspicion of murder (see individual entry below for more information). The lawyer initially declines to represent Greer because of her heavy caseload—unless Reacher acts as a collections agent for a legal debt she considers uncollectable. Reacher, who intimidates the rancher who owes $20,000 to the impoverished Garcias, collects it and secures legal representation for Greer.
Although Reacher is attracted to Aaron, it’s not reciprocal because she’s gay.
Elizabeth Deveraux (The Affair). A former Marine who followed in her father’s footsteps to become a sheriff in Carter Crossing, Mississippi, she helps Reacher in his investigation of a civilian possibly killed by a soldier stationed at nearby Fort Kelham.
Susan Duffy (Persuader). A senior agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Duffy is searching for a missing junior agent named Teresa Daniel, whose real last name is Justice. To uncover the mystery of her disappearance, Duffy works with Reacher to infiltrate a shady rug importer named Zachary Beck, whose operation quickly unravels when Reacher picks up the thread.
M.E. (Mary Ellen) Froelich (Without Fail). Froelich is a Secret Service agent who is protecting Brook Armstrong, the vice president-elect; she hires Reacher to conduct a “security audit.” Meaning, he’s hired to try and breach their security protocols by any means possible, to find exploitable weaknesses.
Reacher is personally recommended to her by a surprising source—his brother, Joe.
Froelich’s connection to Joe Reacher, initially professional, became personal, and became a problem: She used to work in the Department of the Treasury; when she became romantically involved with Joe, she transferred to the Secret Service in order to preserve their relationship.
At a public event at which Armstrong is making an appearance, Froelich takes a bullet and dies in the line of duty. As Jack watches her die, Froelich’s last words are, “I love you, Joe.” (She mistakes Jack for Joe.)
Carmen Greer (Echo Burning). Greer is looking for someone to kill her abusive husband, Sloop Greer. She picks up Reacher, who is hitchhiking in Texas, and propositions him: sex in exchange for killing her husband. Reacher, who is deeply offended by her crass offer, gets out of her car.
The problem is that her husband is going to get sprung from jail soon, so she wants to take him out of the picture— permanently. Since she was instrumental in putting him in the clinker, she’s not looking forward to his homecoming.
Reacher is finally convinced that Greer is being truthful about her situation. He finally decides to help her “Because now I believe you,” he tells her.
Lisa Harper (Running Blind). A twenty-nine-yearold FBI agent who has been on the job for only two years, she’s tall (six feet one inch), a hard-core agent, and makes it clear to Reacher that she’s not looking for any personal involvement with him. Her focus is on finding a killer with an unusual modus operandi: The victims are all female and found naked in a tub filled with camouflage paint.
Holly Johnson (Die Trying). A former stock analyst from Wall Street, she’s twenty-seven years old and a new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. Johnson and Reacher help take down a homegrown terrorist organization comprised of a militia group in Montana. She and Reacher become close, but her romantic sights are set on a fellow FBI agent, McGrath.
Dominique Kohl (Persuader). From Reacher’s past, when he was on active duty, Sergeant first class Kohl was killed when she went to arrest a rogue MI officer, Lieutenant colonel Francis Xavier Quinn, who ten years later is at the heart of a gun-running operation based in New England. (Quinn expanded his inventory to include surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs.) It is because of Kohl’s brutal death that, when Reacher’s in pursuit, he never quits: “If I quit now, it would eat me up for the rest of my days.”
Theresa Lee (Gone Tomorrow). Lee is a New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective who assists Reacher in a case involving what initially looks like a suicide bomber on a subway, but in fact is not. Susan Mark, a blackmailed government employee whose son was kidnapped in order to obtain information, was a pawn in a larger game, with a foreign national named Lila Hoth (a femme fatale) at its center.
Lauren Pauling (The Hard Way). A former FBI agent in her early fifties, Pauling is now a private investigator in what appears to be the kidnapping of Kate Lane, which in fact is staged. Pauling works with Reacher in the investigation.
Beverly Roscoe (Killing Floor). Roscoe is a police officer for the Margrave Police Department in Margrave, Georgia. She befriends and assists Reacher in uncovering what is literally a money-laundering operation.
Summer (The Enemy). (Her first name is not stated.) A first lieutenant who has applied to be transferred to the 110th Special Investigations Unit, she assists Reacher in investigating the case of a suspicious death—MG Kenneth Robert Kramer who was found dead in a cheap motel room off-post, near Fort Bird, North Carolina.