Tom Cruise sends me cakes and Bill Clinton writes to me but I haven’t heard from Trump & that’s fine by me

says Lee, who is not one to mince his words when it comes to the current White House occupant.

Today Lee launches the 22nd thriller in the Reacher series, The Midnight Line, in paperback in the UK.

And he’s already writing the final few scenes of instalment 23, titled Past Tense, which is due out in November.

He’s a writing machine who keeps to a strict timetable, beginning a new book every year on September 1, the anniversary of the date he began his very first.

But despite all his success, he admits the fear of failure never leaves him.

“I get nervous always, I feel this emotional bond with the reader, I want to give them the best possible story I can,” he says. “I always feel ‘this new one is awful...’”

He’s now known as Lee to everyone bar very close family, which can be useful when his books are reviewed.

He explains: “If a bad review happens it’s not really me, and equally if something really good happens it’s the same thing. I can’t really get too big-headed, it’s like it’s happening to someone else.

“I’ve found that really useful in smoothing out the emotional ups and downs of it.

“It’s almost like a double invention, Reacher is a fictional character and maybe the writer is too.”

No one is more staggered at the success Reacher brought than Lee

Acting with Cruise as Jack Reacher in Never Go Back Lee has written 22 novels