Running Blind/The Visitor is my fourth Jack Reacher novel, and like the first three depends on a mixture of suspense, mystery, adventure and thrills. As such, I'm often asked: How do you do your research? Some writers call this a dumb question, but I don't agree. One thing I've learned is that writers work in very varied ways. No two do it alike. So from the reader's point of view, comparing and contrasting can be fascinating.
So how do I do research? Not by going to the public library for three months and taking notes in advance. Problem is, I approach writing the book with the same excitement and impatience that I hope the reader is going to feel about reading it. But I need a certain measure of technical intrigue in the story. So if I'm too impatient to collect specific facts, where do they come from?
The answer is by remembering and adapting. For instance, in countries where the book is already on sale, reviewers have seemed fascinated with an early section where Jack Reacher is subduing a couple of protection racket enforcers in an alley behind a New York restaurant:
US
'He hit the right-hand guy in the side of the head with his elbow. Lots of good biological reasons for doing that. Generally speaking the human skull is harder than the human hand. A hand-to-skull impact, the hand gets damaged first. The elbow is better. And the side of the head is better than the front or the back. The human brain can withstand front-to-back displacement maybe ten times better than side-to-side displacement. Some kind of a complicated evolutionary reason.'
The passage neatly encapsulates Reacher as a skilled and dispassionate fighter, but where and when did I find that information? The answer is years ago, in a couple of different places. I read all the time, absolutely everything. The hand-to-skull stuff came from a Victorian text about prizefighting I bought secondhand and read a decade ago. The front-to-back vs. side-to-side stuff came from a technical article I read in an auto magazine about the need for side airbags. And later, the howdunit part of the story—and I won't say what that is now—came from a newspaper piece I read about sports injuries.
So I file away interesting little snippets—not on paper, but in the back of my mind. Then they eventually float to the surface and get used. Sometimes my recollection can be a little shaky, so the honest answer to the question is most of my research involves clambering around in my basement trying to find dusty old books or long-forgotten periodicals.
