TO call Lee Child a bestselling author is a bit of an understatement.

Illustrating just how popular he is, it has been worked out that every five seconds one of his books is sold somewhere in the world. With sales in excess of 32 million copies, losing his job at the age of 40 was probably the best thing that could have happened to him.

For all those who haven’t heard of Lee, he is the author of the Jack Reacher books, a publishing phenomenon which follows the adventures of an ex-military cop who roams the American highways righting wrongs along the way.

His latest book, 61 Hours, sees Jack Reacher stranded in an icy storm in South Dakota when a bus he is travelling on crashes. As part of the worldwide publicity tour for its release this month, Lee will be coming to Colchester.

Speaking exclusively to the Gazette, Lee said: “I typically do one tour for each book which usually takes in the UK, the US and one other country, but every five years, I do a mega one.

“This year it’s one of those, so after the UK, I will be travelling to Australia and New Zealand.

“It’s exhausting, sure, but it’s terrible to moan about it, because I know how incredibly lucky I am to be doing this job.”

Up until 13 years ago, Lee was doing something very different.

Lee was born in Coventry and grew up in Birmingham.

He studied law at Sheffield University without any intention of being a lawyer because, as he puts it, “law is a subject that permeates all others, from history, philosophy and sociology” and, as such, he knew it would be a useful degree to have.

That foresight continued when he joined Granada Television as a presentation director, looking after the scheduling of programmes, writing thousands of adverts, news stories and trailers. Good grounding for his final career move.

That came about when, at the age of 40, he was made redundant.

He decided to write a novel, Killing Floor, which became the first of the Jack Reacher books and netted him the Anthony Award.

Lee moved to New York with his family soon after, which is where he now lives, only returning to the UK twice a year.

Lee added: “That’s the great thing about writing. You should wait until you are older.

“There are exceptions, but almost all successful writers don’t start until they are halfway through their lives. You’ve lived a bit and had experiences, all of which you can draw on.

“When I started writing it was curiously circular. It needed to work because I didn’t have a job, but at the same time, I couldn’t start thinking about who I needed to appeal to in terms of an audience.

“The only way an author can make it work, is to really believe in it.”

l Lee Child will be at the High Street branch of Waterstones on April 1 from noon.

For more information about the signing, or to reserve a book, call Waterstones on 01206 561307.