Gone Tomorrow-Lee Child

Gone Tomorrow
Lee Child
Delacorte, May 19 2009, $27.00
ISBN 9780385340571

On a nearly vacant Manhattan subway train, former MP Jack Reacher notices the female passenger acting odd. She shows all the nervous signs of a suicide bomber as proscribed by the Israeli military, an occupation by definition always means first timer. The Israreli list of signs contains eleven points in common between the genders; this woman has all of them as the local train heads from Bleeker St. with stops in between towards Grand Central. Absurd as he thinks it is, Reacher follows his gut and calmly confronts her. In her bag is not wires, but a gun she pulls out and points at him before turning it on herself blowing away her head.

NYPD Detective Theresa Lee questions Reacher especially about the Israeli list that led to the “false positive” suicide. Detective Docherty offers a different scenario accusing Reacher of homicide, but the vet calls the cop dumb insisting they are stalling until the Feds arrive. When the FBI does they question Reacher before walking away. Leaving the precinct, he is accosted by four men wanting information and after that by the victim's brother, who insists his sister would not kill herself. Before long Jack finds himself pulled in two directions; one back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the other into the heart of the global war on terrorism; neither make sense, but Jack knows his mission is to kill the bad guys before they cause harm.

The opening sequence as poorly described above is brilliant as Reacher is pulled into an international mess one step at a time. The story line gets even better as the tension mounts as Reacher finds himself caught in the middle. Fans of the series will believe GONE TOMORROW is one of the best entries (that says a lot with the consistency of this series) while newcomers could not ask for a better introduction to the world of the nomadic former MP.

Harriet Klausner