I have to admit that I was disappointed with Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child. I've read most of the Jack Reacher novels which are filled with action sequences and superhuman feats. Oftentimes, the story didn't allow readers to catch their breath. I struggled during the first 80% of this book because of the lack of action. The characters spent most of their time going over data and trying to solve what might be the biggest mystery in the world. I was often bored and set it aside several times, starting new books. I'd return in hopes of the story taking off and gave up again after only a few chapters. I also checked several times to verify that Lee Child was the author, as this storyline is nothing like his past works. Pass this one up and keep your money - read something else. ( )

3.2 stars ( )

I have mixed feelings about Jack Reacher, the on-going main character of something like thirty novels and counting, created by Lee Child and now franchised out to a few other authors. Reacher has two modes (that are plot-worthy, that is: his affinity for coffee and phobia about laundromats do not count): Either Reacher solves crimes or he commits them (or he does both). I was going to stop reading this series after finishing one novel where he appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner. Unfortunately, people who know that I have read a number of the books in this series keep gifting me with them. (Remarkably, there are so many books in the series that nobody has so far given me one I already read.)

I generally read them until I have determined whether Reacher is committing crimes or not, and then I stop reading them if it's mostly about committing crimes.

So far, "Gone Tomorrow" is a mystery in which Reacher keeps his own crimes to a minimum. On page 217, he commits his worst offense, and it seems justified because he assaults four men who have kidnapped Reacher and two police officers. This novel is now more than 12 years old, which is politically and ethically interesting considering the issues that Reacher raises about the authority of his kidnappers who claim to represent a government agency but refuse to identify themselves. Assaulting federal agents is serious and technically an offense, but Reacher strongly suspects that the agents are acting outside of their legal authority. (Kidnapping people--including policemen--seems like it might just be off the books.) Impressively, Reacher respects the authority of the mysterious feds enough to be squeamish about killing them. (He does not.)

One thing that Lee Child always does is to give the reader some inside information. In this novel, he starts by telling us about a checklist used by law enforcement internationally to spot suicide bombers. This is no dry lecture made up of bullet points divorced from the practical. Reacher is on the subway in New York when he notices that a fellow passenger displays all of the telltale signs of a suicide bomber. Unable to save the passenger's life, Reacher spends the rest of the novel, trying to understand why this passenger was there and why so many people are trying to suppress the truth behind the passenger's mission.

Reacher is always somewhat mischievous. Here, for example, he notices that everyone assumes that the passenger gave him some concrete information, which did not, in fact, happen. But Reacher buys a thumb drive and carries it in his pocket. When he is kidnapped by federal agents, and they find out that the thumb drive is blank, they insist that this is a dummy and that Reacher is hiding the "real" thumb drive somewhere. In this way, Reacher manages to fool his adversaries to the amusement of the reader. (Ultimately, I think he hopes to flush out the bad actors who will show their hand needlessly by going after incriminating evidence that does not exist.)

So far, the ratio between Reacher solving crimes versus committing crimes in this novel overwhelmingly favors crime-solving, and the mystery continues well into the book. So, I am continuing reading this one. And I recommend it to mystery lovers.

Lee Childs style is hyper-straightforward, like Hemingway on soporific drugs. As with Hemmingway, the action being described matter-of-factly is exciting enough that the prose style does not bore the reader.

Child's relay of information is not always accurate. Reacher, at one point, is considering the possible medals that a soldier who comes back from a successful but secret combat mission might be awarded. One medal he considers is the Soldier's Medal. But this is a mistake. That medal is strictly for non-combat heroism. For example, during World War II, Sgt. Frank Peregory (a.k.a., Frank Peregoy) won the Soldier's Medal for rescuing a drowning man during a training exercise.

In another example, Child says about the federal agents' Glock handguns that they are "[n]ine-millimeter automatic pistols from Austria...." This is not exactly correct. To be pedantic, perhaps, they are semi-automatic and they do not come from Austria, strictly speaking; the US government and the many state and local law enforcement agencies that buy Glocks do not get them from Austria where Glock is headquartered. Rather they get them from a Glock-owned plant in the US state of Georgia where Glocks are machined and assembled. (Glock is proprietary about its formula for the steel they use, so the plant in Georgia imports the steel from Austria; but otherwise the gun is manufactured in the US and not imported.) ( )

It's book #13, what else can be said about Reacher? You know by now if you like him, if not, why would you read all the way to book 13? I for one love Reacher, and Child, and the way he crafts his books. Great suspense and intrigue...heck I still wonder what was really on that memory stick. I'll take a break and read something else in between, but I'll be back soon! ( )

Bellissimo, ricco di sorprese e colpi di scena, un’altra avventura imperdibile che vede protagonista Reacher, un personaggio che amo come pochi altri, unico nel suo genere.
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