Echo Burning

infobox Book |
name = Echo Burning
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = 2001 Hardcover edition
author = Lee Child
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Jack Reacher
subject =
genre = Thriller novel
publisher = Putnam
release_date = June 21, 2001
media_type = Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
pages = 384 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-399-14726-8
preceded_by = Running Blind
followed_by = Without Fail

Echo Burning is the fifth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. It was published by Putnam in 2001.

The book is set in the fictional Texas county of Echo, according to the books the American county with the lowest population per square kilometre (0.015 people per km). In the novel, Echo County has only 150 residents but expands with dimensions approximately 100km wide at its greatest length and 50km wide at its maximum width. It stretches along the Mexican border to the south with Dallas the nearest major city, over 200km away.

This novel helps to explain why "everything's bigger in Texas." In one scene (chapter 16, page 300) Reacher notes, "Far to the south a ragged bolt exploded from the sky and hit the earth five miles away.... The thunder followed the lightning five seconds later, a ragged tearing rumble." Of course, in any state besides Texas, a lightning strike that has a five-second gap between the bolt of lightning and the clap of thunder is determined to have occurred one mile away. Thus the Texas Mile is roughly five times of an international mile.