Series: Jack Reacher

The "Jack Reacher" books by Lee Child. Jack is a military policeman, or later on (chronologically) a private investigator or security contractor. He's weirdly laid-back, not ambitious, but utterly committed to the investigations, and sometimes to his own version of justice. This has lead him to commit flat-out murder at least once.

I'm choosing to number these in publication order. They are not being published in order of internal chronology; for example, the second one I read (The Enemy) is number eight in publication order, but as of when I read it number one in chronological order. Knowing this, publication order is safer—chronological order will probably be disturbed by future releases. Also, publication order is nearly always a good way to read a series, since that's the order in which it actually made the author money.