Like his fictional hero Jack Reacher, best selling author Lee Child is tall and has a sturdy jaw – but is that where the similarity ends? Lorne Jackson meets him.

I first spot Lee Child as he strolls straight past me, heading for the exit of the hotel where we agreed to meet.

Once outdoors, he immediately fires up a cigarette.

Smoking appears to be one of the Birmingham-raised author’s only visible weaknesses. He certainly doesn’t admit to any others.

After I’ve wrecked his fag break by introducing myself, we repair to the hotel’s lobby, where he reveals himself to be unencumbered by doubts regarding his abilities.

My hunch is he’d rather self-harm than self-deprecate. But then why should he be humble?

He’s a whopping great Lee Child-shaped success story. His thrillers regularly top best-sellers lists, both here and across the Atlantic. The latest in the series, The Affair, is sure to do likewise.

Child’s mighty fan base is also ripe for expansion, with Tom Cruise accepting the lead in a movie based on One Shot, a much-read early work.

Cruise will play Jack Reacher, the former US military cop, turned drifter, who is the protagonist in all Child novels.

The template for the books can be described fairly succinctly. Reacher rolls into town, rolls in the hay with local damsel, rolls over bad guys, then rolls out of town again.

Imagine The Littlest Hobo, minus the fur and whiskers – but with lashings of sex and violence – and you’ve pretty much got the idea.

All of which may sound rather simplistic, though that’s not the case.

These are cannily crafted thrillers, highly readable, and with a subtle depth that has attracted fans of the stature of Stephen King and Philip Pullman.

Cruise’s adaptation will raise the author’s profile to even more exalted heights, though Reacher acolytes are already voicing concern.

The principal worry focuses on height.

In the novels Reacher is 6ft 5ins. As is Cruise... minus six of those feet. Okay, maybe Tom isn’t really that tiddly. Even so, it won’t just be his acting range that needs stretching.

Child bullishly brushes off this unhelpful observation. “The argument would make more sense if there was a bunch of 6ft 5ins actors we bypassed in order to get Tom Cruise,” he says.

“But there wasn’t. There are just no actors that size. Even Clint Eastwood isn’t that big. He acts big, but when you actually meet him, he’s not that tall.

“It’s a stupid argument, because either we’re going to have an actor who’s seven inches shorter than Reacher, or someone eight inches shorter.

“One way or another, nobody in Hollywood is going measure up.”

He adds: “What people forget about Tom Cruise is that the root of his success is he’s a great actor, and he will do this part fine.

“My fans, who know the books really well, will find it very weird for about five minutes, when they see Cruise on screen. The question is, what happens then, for the next 95 minutes? Will they get sucked into the story? I think they will. I’ve seen the read-through with Cruise, and I know he’ll pull this off.”

Child was certainly impressed when he met the star.

“He’s a dedicated actor. He works hard, he’s always on time. He’s sober. He’s a very professional guy. And that will be invaluable, because this is going to be a massive production.”

Robert Duvall and Werner Herzog – both scene-stealing character actors – have also been cast.

“These are exceptional performers, and they wouldn’t be in the project if it wasn’t for Cruise. That’s why, for me, getting Tom was a win-win situation.”

Some aspects of the role shouldn’t prove troublesome. Reacher and Cruise are both US citizens, after all. Unlike the author of the books.

It seems strange that Child – born in Coventry, raised in Handsworth Wood – would invent an All American hero. Yet that’s precisely what he did.

His thrillers thrive on American language, American locations and an American cast. They read like authentic American thrillers, too.

Pasty-faced pastiche? Perish the thought.

Was he never inclined to create a fictional character closer to home?

“I think the old saying ‘write what you know’ is very bad advice, actually. Writing fiction is all about imagination. So why not go the whole way? Imagine the entire thing. I think you get a better effect.

“People assume it was much harder for me to write about a country that wasn’t mine. But actually it was much easier, because everything had to be thought about. Everything had to be considered.

“That consistency of the overall approach helped the book to be very organic and very uniform.

“Besides, I knew America pretty well. I’m married to an American and I’d been going there for 20 years. So I wasn’t coming from a place of complete ignorance.”

Perhaps it wasn’t a place of ignorance, but it was certainly a place of uncertainty. Child began his first novel at the age of 40, after being sacked by ITV due to corporate restructuring.

Until then he had worked as a presentation director. Lesser mortals would have retreated to a world of saggy sweat-pants, daytime telly and despair.

Not Child. He scoffs at self pity. Failure isn’t in his vocabulary.

“Forty years is a critical age, one way or another. The bad news is you’re already pretty old. But the good news is, it’s about the last time that you can really make a big change.

“You ought to be confident, because basically at that point you’ve worked half your life, you’ve worked half a career. And you’ve picked up skills and work habits and disciplines, and you’re not an idiot any more, not a kid. You’re a mature adult, and you should have confidence in yourself.

“Even if you do have to start over again, you start from a base that is much higher than first time around. So I wasn’t worried, though it was an upsetting period.