Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher, No. 13) by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher, No. 13)
Book Review: Bad Jack is back
Summary: 5 Stars
Bad Jack is back
After several mediocre Jack Reacher novels, Lee Child is back with a superb action thriller reminiscent of his original Reacher books. What makes Mr. Child's books so entertaining is his attention to detail as he develops the complex story. Gone Tomorrow is classic Child right from the get-go, "Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of telltale signs." Boom, it's off to the Reacher races. Sharp, short, descriptive sentences that grabs the reader and immediately involves him/her in the violent world of Jack Reacher. Gone Tomorrow is both a simple and complex tale. It is layered just right to keep the reader guessing and uses misdirection as a literary art form. Reacher is smart. He uses his Common Sense and police mind experience to piece together a tale of violence and intrigue. A woman, who Reacher thinks is a suicide bomber, commits suicide by gunshot on a subway when Reacher tries to intervene. The cops come, he is detained as a witness, and the Gone Tomorrow tale takes off in literary fury. Mr. Child is a true master storyteller and to tell you more would simply spoil this wonderful novel.
Outstanding character development. I never tire of learning new facets of Jack Reacher's life. Mr. Child has a unique way of fully developing all of his story's characters. By the end of the book you feel like you know exactly who the main characters are and why they do what they do. Refreshing and masterful use of an array of different character types.
No gratuitous language or sex but intense and graphic violence. But isn't this why we read Mr. Child? The author has this unique way of writing about violence in a way that is not gratuitous but story enlightening. Reacher does what Reacher does because that is what is required of him to survive.
Strong recommend. Worth the price of a hardback, or get it at your local library. Jack Reacher is one of my favorite characters along with Harry Bosch and Mitch Rapp. I'm very happy that Mr. Child has returned Jack to that apolitical, unflappable loner that we all have grown to admire and enjoy. Looking forward to Mr. Child's next Jack Reacher novel,
Book Review: Reacher proves he's the sharpest knife in the drawer
Summary: 5 Stars
A year ago, I read Lee Child's last Reacher thriller, the politicized Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher, No. 12), a disaster in public relations vis-à-vis his fan base that left more than just a few customer reviewers, including myself, shaking their heads and wondering what the author, his editor, and his publisher could possibly have been thinking. Could Lee subsequently redeem himself? Happily, with GONE TOMORROW, the author has done so brilliantly and in a manner reminiscent of the original form which made ex-military MP Jack Reacher so compelling in the first place.
When this book opens during the wee-hours on a New York subway train, Reacher approaches a young woman ("I can help you") that he judges to be a suicide bomber. Without much further ado, she blows off her own head with a .357 Magnum revolver. With that, Jack becomes embroiled with an emerging U.S. presidential candidate hiding a past, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and most certainly the nastiest villains Reacher has yet encountered in a dozen previous adventures.
As I progressed through the pages, I was struck for the first time - perhaps I hadn't been sufficiently attentive before - how the author ends each chapter with a line that compels the reader - at least this reader - to press on no matter the lateness of the hour. And on a school night, too. That signifies to me a master of the craft. One warning, however, if you've a vivid imagination. There's one chapter not for the faint of heart about three-quarters of the way in that may keep you from getting to sleep because of the horrific images it will call up. If the book is ever translated to the Big Screen, this scene will prompt my visit to the concession stand.
The conclusion to GONE TOMORROW has perhaps the most nail-biting and deadliest personal combat sequence of Reacher's literary life. Of course, we all know he'll win any face-off, but that doesn't mean he won't find it dodgy.
No doubt about it, Jack and his creator are back in their top forms. And, I say, not a moment too soon.
Book Review: Bravo!
Summary: 5 Stars
Some time ago, I read Lee Child's Without Fail. I remember it as an exciting read, but it didn't cause me to seek another Child novel. Recently, I picked up Gone Tomorrow. Simply put, it's a great book.
If you're willing to accept the basic premise that a spellbinding adventure could flow from witnessing a woman (a complete stranger) kill herself on a New York subway, then the book makes sense. The hero, Jack Reacher, is a fortyish veteran of thirteen years' service as an MP officer. As an MP, he was engaged in special investigations all over the world. He developed first-rate fighting skills and marksmanship. Now, he wanders about on a limited budget confronting (and relishing) any dangerous challenge that comes his way.
Reacher is a sort of James Bond on the cheap. He stays in expensive hotel rooms at a steep discount by bribing maids and night clerks to let him in off the books. He takes a bus to get around. He'll walk to save bucks. He remembers where there's a cheap eatery with good food.
Reacher is also largely uncomfortable with today's technology. He describes himself as the only guy in America without a cell phone. He's unsure about how to play a DVD in a computer.
Gone Tomorrow centers on a search for a flash drive that contains a picture that may incriminate John Sansom, North Carolina Congressman and senatorial candidate. The picture was taken in Afghanistan in 1983 when Sansom met with what many consider to be the most evil man on the planet. Sansom, the DOD, FBI, Homeland Security, and a particulary vicious (but stunningly beautiful) terrorist, Lila Hoth, all want that picture in the worst possible way. Lila proves to be almost as cunning and resourceful as Reacher.
Child pays meticulous attention to detail. The story is set in Manhattan and Child shows a familiarity with the island and its people that could only come from tirelessly roaming the mean streets himself.
The book clearly reflects careful writing and editing. There are no typos, no awkward phrases. Not a single useless character.
Book Review: Read everything by Lee Child, they're all good
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to thank Amazon readers for giving Lee Child books such good reviews, because I would never have bothered with them on my own. Somehow I had mixed up Lee Child with Lincoln Child, whose book Death Match was such a terrible, boring, go-nowhere dud that I avoided all authors named Child for years.
Now I've read everything Lee Child ever wrote. He is just so much fun, a fabulous storyteller in the true English troubadour tradition, mixing a lot of fun factual trivia with a hero that is so outrageously improbable that it makes for a wonderful and satisfying reading experience.
There are webpages for people who have read everything by Lee Child and are suffering withdrawal symptoms. I found some of them. If you haven't experienced the literary testosterone/crack cocaine speedball of a Lee Child novel, I highly recommend that you try it. Make sure you have a good book in reserve, though, for the comedown after you've spent a month or so reading nothing but Jack Reacher. I fell into a serious state of depression after I had run out of my fix. It took Michael Connelly to pull me out of it.
The first few Reacher novels have an almost too-manly abruptness and an incredible amount of shrugging. As an inoculation, I suggest you read G. M. Handlon "the brewfisher"'s hilarious one-star review of the Killing Floor, entitled "I shrugged, he shrugged, she shrugged," October 18, 2006. Here's my favourite part of Handlon's review, "Short sentences. Incomplete. He likes them. Loves them, really. Six word limit. Good for some folks. Not for me. No short attention span here. How about you? I shrugged. Why did I finish it? Dunno. I shrugged." Yeah, Handlon makes a good point, but also cops to the fact that the Reacher books are tremendously compelling, even with their flaws. With Handlon's help, I cracked up each time somebody shrugged, which made the whole experience more bearable.
Read by the king of audiobooks, Dick Hill. Need I say more?
I review only audiobooks. Read my reviews, download, plug in, and you'll never be bored again.
Book Review: "When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains"
Summary: 5 Stars
"And the women are comin' to cut up your remains..."
Many have quoted Kipling's ghoulish warning to armies who dared to trespass Afghanistan's hostile terrain, but few have spun a more riveting tale around this admonishment, and none have so cleverly tied decades of war in Afghanistan to an early morning Manhattan subway car.
Make no mistake about it, after last year's dismal "Nothing to Lose", Lee Child - and Jack Reacher - are back in figurative and literal full force. Child is the master at hooking the reader on the first page - the first sentence - and this one's "Suicide bombers are easy to spot" opening unleashes classic Reacher fare: lean, unadorned dialog, intelligent and fact-chocked plotting, and unbridled mayhem. And unlike "Nothing to Lose", one must believe that Child got the message, and left "Gone Tomorrow" mercifully apolitical. Reacher is back as pop thriller fiction's most interesting character, the iconoclastic drifter with Sherlock Holme's unassailable logic and King Kong's brawn. Child seasons his drama with detail bordering on minutia that would be tedium if tried by a less talented author, but Child, with factoids as obscure as the origin of "hello" to the derivation of nine-millimeter Parabellum rounds, hones the tension and sharpens the action with his delicious trivia. The action never slows as Reacher tracks down the mystery of the fateful 2AM subway ride, unraveling mystery and deceit in a Byzantine maze of war and strategy and terrorism and counter-terrorism that spans decades and continents. In the process, Child creates a pair of the most unusual and unexpectedly diabolical and terrifying villains that pop fiction has seen in a very long time - if ever. In short, an escapist thrill-fest that carries enough credibility and interest in the ever-twisting story to make you think, "Hmm, I wonder if it could really have happened like that?"
So thanks, Lee, and welcome back! You've knocked it out of the park. This is definitely one of the best Reachers ever - do not miss it!