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the complete review - fiction

Gone Tomorrow

by
Lee Child

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : solid thriller, all around

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "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" - John O'Connell, The Guardian
  
  
• "For all his short declarative sentences, there is a certain harsh urban poetry in Child's writing. He does for New York what Joyce does for Dublin, turning it into a dreamy city of the mind, the capital of a country that does not exist, as Reacher weaves around the mean streets, zeroing in on his target. (...) 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." - Andy Martin, The Independent
  
  
• "Child has a style that in many ways echoes his protagonist’s. Child’s writing is both propulsive and remarkably error-free, and he’s expert at ratcheting up the tension while dispensing all manner of specific information. (...) Though Child has a tendency to get too fearfully graphic when describing physical violence, his books don’t fully come to life unless and until Reacher unleashes his fearsome physique and destroys whatever is in his path. Which makes Gone Tomorrow something of an odd duck. Perhaps because it deals with international terrorism, this book is at once creepier and more serious than some others in the series, with not as many opportunities for the old demolition machine to go into action." - Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times
  
  
• "Gone Tomorrow has such a case of villain inflation that it involves itself in global geopolitics on the highest order. One step higher into the upper reaches of evildoing and Mr. Child could find himself on the moon. Gone Tomorrow prompts nostalgia for the simpler books in the series (.....) That this Reacher is so effortlessly larger than life is evidence of how intense the overall series has become." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Gone Tomorrow is one of the Jack Reacher-novels narrated by the protagonist, but the prose and presentation are as direct and to-the-point (or, rather: the action) as always. The novel opens with Reacher in Manhattan, taking the subway late at night -- the 6 train at two in the morning. There are five other passengers in the same car as him -- and one of them checks pretty much all of the points on "a list of behavioral pointers" the Israelis put together to identify suicide bombers. So Reacher does what he does -- approach her and tries to talk her down from whatever she might be planning.
       There isn't a complete disaster, as Reacher feared -- he's here to tell the tale, after all -- but it doesn't go that great either; he didn't read the situation entirely correctly -- but, then, it turns out the situation is considerably more complex than he initially imagined. The woman is Susan Mark -- and quite a few people are interested in Reacher's interaction with her: did she give him anything ? did she mention any names, like Lila Hoth or John Sansom ? Reacher being Reacher, he can't leave well enough alone and begins to investigate.
       Mark worked in human resources at the Pentagon -- hardly a high-security posting. But John Sansom is a congressman from North Carolina, now running for a senate seat -- and he had been in the Special Forces in the military ..... So one of the first things Reacher does is learn more about and then seek out Sansom. There's not much information about what Sansom did in the military, but he got some impressive medals and Reacher knows the kind of thing it would have taken to get those; he figures something from Sansom's military past that has been long buried is what everyone is so interested in.
       Reacher also finds his way to Lila Hoth -- staying in a suite at the Four Seasons --, who Susan Mark was apparently heading to meet. Hoth hoped to get some information from Mark -- about someone in the military who her mother, Svetlana, who is traveling with her, had met in Berlin in the early eighties and hoped to trace.
       It takes a while for Reacher to pull away the various layers and figure out what's really going on, and things are complicated by the fact that not only are there bad guys threatening him but the federal authorities really don't want Reacher digging around. At least the NYPD detective Theresa Lee, who first interviews him after the subway incident, is somewhat helpful -- though she'd prefer to steer clear of the case as well. And Susan's brother Jacob, a small-town cop in New Jersey, also wants to know what his sister got involved in, so he's a bit of help as well. Still, ultimately -- and in typical Reacher style -- Reacher insists: "Alone is always better", and when it gets to the final confrontation he handles things pretty much all on his own.
       Until then ... well, there are a lot of layers to peel, and Child does so pretty well. Even well into figuring things out Reacher still admits: "this thing is like an iceberg. Most of it is still hidden". But he does figure most of it out -- which is dangerous in and of itself: the enemy here is truly nasty, with Reacher exposed to their fairly gratuitous violence (which Child presents in not-for-the-fainthearted detail) before then also facing it in person.
       A lot of the Reacher-novel basics are found in Gone Tomorrow: Reacher constantly on the run and hunted from more than one side (but with a small support crew that helps out in essential ways -- while steering clear when the final push comes to shove); Reacher in near constant motion (Child's odd insistence on having him travel far and wide whenever possible comes through even in this very New York City-based story, with Reacher taking quick trips to DC and even North Carolina; he then also is constantly on the move in Manhattan (though actively avoiding Queens and the other boroughs)); and a ridiculous one-against-(too-)many final showdown confrontation (though Reacher does cleverly improve the odds in the run-up to that).
       The reminders of how it's a changed world after the 11 September 2001 attacks is also a recurring theme, from Reacher being warned off by the authorities that, sure, maybe: "You were hot shit back in prehistory. But this is a new world now. You're out of your depth" to what the government can do nowadays if he keeps poking his nose in things he isn't supposed to:

You'll just disappear, physically and bureaucratically. That can happen now, you know. This is a whole new world. I'd like to say I would help with the process, but I wouldn't get the chance. Not even close. Because a whole bunch of other people would come for you first. I would be so far back in line that even your birth certificate would be blank before I got anywhere near you.

     "We have rights."
     "We used to."

- M.A.Orthofer, 15 December 2025

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Links:

• Dell publicity page
• Penguin publicity page
• Le Livre de Poche publicity page
• Blanvalet publicity page
• Longanesi publicity page
• Blatt & Ríos publicity page

• Book Reviews and More
• Bookish Indulgences
• A Bookish Type
• A Bookworm's World
• Daniel's Corner Unlimited
• Michael Davis
• Euro Crime
• GregHorrorShow
• The Guardian
• In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel
• The Independent
• The Irresponsible Reader
• Kirkus Reviews
• Brent Logan
• The Los Angeles Times
• Mysteries in Paradise
• Our Wander Years
• Publishers Weekly
• Rhapsody in Books Weblog
• Seattle Times
• Speesh Reads
• Tour's Books Blog
• Worn Out Spines

• Official site
• How Jack Reacher Was Built by John Lanchester

• The Affair
• Bad Luck and Trouble
• Die Trying
• The Enemy
• Killing Floor
• Make Me
• Never Go Back
• Night School
• One Shot
• Personal
• Persuader
• Running Blind (UK title: The Visitor)
• 61 Hours
• Without Fail

• See Index of Mysteries and Thrillers
• See Index of Contemporary British fiction
• See Index of Series and Sequels under review

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About the Author:

       British author Lee Child was born in 1954.

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© 2025 the complete review

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