Gone Tomorrow
 UK Cover | |
| Author | Lee Child |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Jack Reacher |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | Bantam Press (UK), Delacorte Press (US) |
Publication date | 10 September 2009 (United Kingdom) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 396 |
| ISBN | 978-0-593-06402-3 |
| OCLC | 245599035 |
| Preceded by | Nothing To Lose |
| Followed by | 61 Hours |
Gone Tomorrow is the thirteenth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child.[1] It was published on 23 April 2009 in the United Kingdom and 19 May 2009 in the USA. It is written in the first person.
Plot summary
It's 2am, and Jack Reacher is travelling on the New York City Subway. He notices a suspicious looking passenger who matches many of the specifications for a potential suicide bomber. When he approaches her with an offer of assistance she shoots herself.
NYPD are eager to close the file without investigating the tragedy, but Reacher has other ideas. He wants to know what happened that night, and, more importantly, why. Is everyone as honest as they claim to be? And if so, then why are there so many questions to be asked and avoided?
Reacher is repeatedly and emphatically warned off the case, but his guilt over possibly triggering the poor woman's suicide won't let him rest until he has pursued the mystery all the way to the very end. In a world gone grey with moral and ethical relativism only Jack Reacher stubbornly sticks to his high standards no matter what the personal cost.
With the help of agent Theresa Lee and Susan's brother, he discovers there's a big politician, John Sansom, behind it. He was in Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden and had ordered the FBI and namely Susan Mark, who worked for them, to delete a compromising picture of him; but his picture was in the hands of some terrorists disguised as foreign americans, some Lila Hoth and her mother Svetlana, who had already massacred people among whom Peter Molina - Susan's adopted son - too. Reacher discovers that they are simple terrorists belonging to Al Qaeda, not mother and daughter, and that Susan was sent the video of his son's slaying so, in disgust, she had thrown away the file and decided to kill herself; when Jack catches them in a hotel, he kills them both with a knife.
Critical reception
Gone Tomorrow has the switchback plotting and frictionless prose that are Child's trademarks. Unlike most of the series, though, it's narrated by Reacher himself. His lone-wolf habits and brusque, technophobic decodings of the world are always a pleasure, though how he maintains fighting fitness on a diet of pancakes, bacon and coffee is one of the world's great mysteries.
—John O'Connell, The Guardian[2]
Gone Tomorrow has a surprisingly retro flavour, captured in Reacher's line "roll the clock back". The narrative works its way back through history in search of answers to the problems of the present. And there is something nostalgically neolithic about Reacher himself, a nomadic hunter-gatherer who can only be stopped by an anaesthetic dart-gun originally aimed at gorillas.
—Andy Martin, The Independent[3]
References
- ↑ "Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher #13)". goodreads.com. Retrieved 2014-10-10.
- ↑ O'Connell, John (2 May 2009). "Gone Tomorrow". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2012-10-10.
- ↑ Martin, Andy (25 June 2009). "Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-10-10.