Product Description

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of tell-tale signs. Mostly because they're nervous. By definition they're all first-timers. Riding the subway in New York at two o'clock in the morning, Reacher knows the twelve giveaway signs to look out for. Watching one of his fellow-passengers, he becomes sharply aware: one by one, she ticks off every bulletpoint on his list. So begins the new heartstopping new thriller starring today's most admired action hero, the gallant and enigmatic loner Jack Reacher.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8349 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Lee Child has steadily accrued one of the keenest groups of admirers for any contemporary thriller writer – and the reason is easy to discern. In such gritty and authoritative novels as Tripwire, Killing Floor and Die Trying, Child established his tough itinerant protagonist Jack Reacher as a key modern hero, with a taciturn, hard-boiled appeal that has not palled over many books (though some have queried Jack’s transformation from a man who triumphed -- with difficulty – over insuperable odds – into a nigh-invulnerable super-hero). But the narrative grasp of the author remains absolutely iron-clad, and there are the stunningly drawn American locales that are so notably impressive from an English author.

In the latest outing for Jack Reacher, Gone Tomorrow, Child’s resourceful hero is travelling in New York City, observing his fellow passengers on the subway. He’s aware that suicide bombers are easy to spot – they’re usually nervous, and (as he wryly notes) by definition they're first-timers. As an ex-law enforcer, Jack notices that of his five fellow travellers, one is distinctly giving out the signals that spell danger. Grand Central Station is approaching – will Jack act and save lives – including his own? But… what if he's wrong?

This high voltage situation is the arresting curtain opener here, and the tension is screwed tighter, as Jack Reacher is pitched against the one of the most challenging threats he has come up against. Gone Tomorrow has all the dynamism of Child’s earlier work; spruced-up, super-charged and showing no sign of age. --Barry Forshaw

Review
Has the switchback plotting and frictionless prose that are Child's trademarks...always a pleasure. --Guardian

Review
Among the most popular crime novels right now - they're good fun and super-tense...One of his best.

Customer Reviews

Lee Child is back in form
The first and best news is that Lee Child is back in form with "Gone Tomorrow". While not the all time best Reacher novel that I have read, this is a more than satisfactory addition to the series. It involves some truly unpleasant villains, a politician with a deeply guarded secret, a missing son and plenty of tension. One thing I love but also find quite disconcerting when I'm reading a Reacher novel is the way that he deliberately seeks out and provokes the bad guys. It's so much the opposite of the way that I would behave that I find it quite nerve-wracking to read. And in this book, he does it a LOT.

It starts with Reacher on a New York subway in the small hours of the morning. He spots a woman, Susan Marks, whose behaviour meets every criteria for a suicide bomber. She's not. But she is a woman in trouble. Reacher can't help Susan, but he can't let the matter rest until he finds out what was behind her state of mind and finds the people who drove her to that point. Although at various times he recruits her brother and a friendly police officer as allies, essentially this is Reacher taking on the bad guys on his own.

The first half of the book is all set up and it's quite gradual. Reacher is a little slow off the mark: there are a couple of revelations that seemed pretty obvious to me, but which take some time to emerge. On the other hand, I wasn't sure for quite some time who the villains would turn out to be, which I enjoyed. In the second half, Reacher goes after the villains: this half is dead exciting and includes some of the most graphic descriptions of violence that I remember Lee Child writing.

There is one central implausibility: Reacher is told repeatedly that he'll be in deep trouble if he finds out a particular secret. But when he does find it out, suddenly it doesn't seem to matter that he knows. Child also leaves a couple of key plot elements unresolved. And the obligatory roll in the sack feels just that: out of place and only there because it's expected. However, at the end of the day these are just annoyances, not critical flaws.

Unusually, this book is written in the first person (as if Reacher is narrating): only three other Lee Child books have used this. It's not my preference given that Reacher is such an enigma, but it works fine. It's a great read: enjoy!

Far from Jack's best but big improvement on last novel
As someone who has devoured all of Lee Child's books about the maverick crusader Jack Reacher I was hugely disappointed with last years novel " Nothing to Lose " which I thought was merely a tired rehash of previous stories. Had this franchise had run it's course ? not on your Nelly !, Gone Tomorrow is a vast improvement with Jack waging a one manned battle against some heavyweight bad guys ( and girls ! ) on the streets of New York.
A welcome return to form with a tight and well structured storyline not Jack's best adventure but still a great read and miles better than most other contemporary thrillers
Get it read !!

Gripping But Slipping
Lee Child has the gift of writing highly formulaic thrillers that turn into immediate bestsellers. "Gone Tomorrow " will do the same, even though the formula is getting tired.

"Gone Tomorrow" is the 13th book in the Jack Reacher series and is just like the others except that it is written in the first person. Reacher is a retired major in the elite 101st Division of the Military Police. He is the ultimate loner. He has no home, no commitments and no possessions other than the clothes on his back, an expired passport and an ATM card (which he uses to access his military pension to pay for cheap hotels and new underwear). He does not even have a backpack, or a jacket, or a wallet. He does not wear a watch because he can always tell the time without one (except when sedated - wholly unnecessarily- by a tranquilizer dart usually reserved for gorillas). He does not carry a weapon because he himself is a perfect killing machine and if he does need one, he can always requisition a Heckler and Koch MP5 SD (magazine capacity: 32 rounds, three settings) in the field. Reacher's lifestyle is the first thing that demands the reader's suspension of disbelief.

In this book, as usual, Reacher is crisscrossing the USA hoping to stumble on a sinister conspiracy into which he can insert himself even though it is none of his business. Conveniently, he encounters a potential suicide bomber on the New York Subway. He identifies this risk by running through an Israeli Defence Forces checklist in his head (seasonally inappropriate clothing, prayer mumbling etc) while ignoring a counter checklist of offsetting evidence (middle of the night, Caucasian female subject etc). His bungled attempt to intervene leads to savage encounters with al Qaeda (they WERE involved, after all) the NYPD (which also generously supplies the love or at least the obligatory but brief sex interest), a 600 person Federal task force and a US Senatorial candidate with a past. Everyone is searching for a piece of evidence that is potentially embarrassing to the US Government, the candidate or Osama bin Laden or all of the above. Lots of bad guys are satisfyingly dispatched and numerous arrogant Feds are hoist on their own dart guns.

The plot is, in other words, risible. The secret at the heart of the story is not worth protecting, its revelation anticlimactic in the extreme.The nature and behavior of the two female villains are insultingly implausible. The malevolent incompetence of the Feds ("this is the new world") is just a lazy plot device. If the agents of Child's host country (he is an expatriate Brit) are as sinister and as sensitive about cover up as he suggests, he had better watch his back. Especially if a shiny black Crown Vic - the Standard LY not the Police Interceptor model)-draws up beside him and three men, wearing mid-range blue suits with a slight bagginess in their left shoulders, step out.

While many thriller writers conduct exhaustive research, the homework behind this book - the technical specs of a Kawasaki R142A subway car, the magazine capacities of various firearms, a superficial history of Afghanistan, US military acronyms - could have been conducted on a laptop while sipping a tall, skinny latte in the local Starbucks (but not by Reacher - he is virtually technically illiterate).

Without question, Child still has the gift of writing great suspense. His sparse prose, the elemental violence and the relentless, Cyborgian logic of Reacher's character, build and release tension in a wonderfully cathartic way. But, it feels as if Child is bored with his formula. There are repetitions from the past books, the plotting, the research and the character development are lazy. Gripping but slipping. The franchise is being milked.