Search - Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher, Bk 13)

That blissful, satisfied sigh you hear is me. I devoured Gone Tomorrow in less than a day, all 421 pages. No, it isn’t deathless prose, not even for an action thriller, but it is what Lee Child and his protagonist Jack Reacher do best - slam into you at full tilt from the opening lines while you hang on for a thrill ride.

“Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of telltale signs. Mostly because they’re nervous. By definition they’re all first timers.”

Jack Reacher is on the Lexington Avenue local at 2AM and remembering all the training he had by Israeli counterintelligence and watching a woman that fits the profile perfectly. She’s wearing a bulky oversized parka on a hot fall day and it’s zipped to the neck. She keeps muttering, as if reciting a prayer, her hands hidden in a small backpack on her lap wrapped around something hard – like the battery and detonator switch. But surely it’s the wrong time – not enough people, but it was impossible for Reacher to ignore. He figures he’s as dead where he sits as he will be closer, so he approaches. Trying to calm her, he says he’s a cop. Instead, she pulls out a gun and kills herself with a .357 Magnum through her head.

Coffee with Jacob Mark, the brother of Susan Mark, the suicide victim and himself a cop in Jersey, has Reacher doing a combination soul searching and counseling a bereaved family member. Jacob keeps saying Susan had no reason for such an act. He is utterly convinced that, despite their distant relationship, his sister was a happy woman and not at all someone who would kill herself. At least Reacher learns how she was identified so quickly, she worked at the Pentagon. Was that why feds – probably DoD - showed up? Did she take something from the Pentagon?

But what’s really driving Reacher is the small chance that by telling the woman he was a cop, he was responsible for pushing her over the edge. The anguish and bewilderment of her brother hits Reacher hard where he is most venerable, in his conscience.

The book has its failing - including Reacher's bizarre lapse in geography and sudden ineptitude with cell phones, but he's back in kick-ass form after 3 weak entries in a row. A solid action thriller. You can find a complete review on my blog. http://toursbooks.wordpress.com/

Jack Reacher still keeps me up nights. This one was not up to par with some of the earlier ones but still will look forward to the next one.

AWESOME ONE OF HIS BEST FRESH AND NEW YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE JACK REACHER IS GOING TO TAKE YOU

New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn’t. And if you think Reacher isn’t going to get involved . . . then you don’t know Jack.

Susan Mark, the fifth passenger, had a big secret, and her plain little life was being watched in Washington, and California, and Afghanistan—by dozens of people with one thing in common: They’re all lying to Reacher. A little. A lot. Or just enough to get him killed. A race has begun through the streets of Manhattan, a maze crowded with violent, skilled soldiers on all sides of a shadow war. For Jack Reacher, a man who trusts no one and likes it that way, the finish line comes when you finally get face-to-face and look your worst enemy in the eye.

Excellent Jack Reacher adventure.

Another page turner! I like these books a lot.