Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

 

Gone Tomorrow

By Lee Child

Delacorte Press book

$27.00, hard cover, 421 pages, 978-0-385-34057-1 (2009)

 

            Lee Child books are like those old Lay's potato chips commercials: Betcha can't eat just one – only in this case, betcha can't read just one. It's not my fault the author makes the books so addictive. Just take the opening line: "Suicide bombers are easy to spot."

            Now who doesn't want to keep reading with an opening like that?

 

            Here's the entire first paragraph of the book:

 

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.

 

            Well that first paragraph is all it took for me to be hooked.

 

            Child's longtime hero, Jack Reacher, is riding a New York City subway train at two in the morning when he spots a woman, one of five passengers on the subway, whom he believes to be a suicide bomber. She has many of the signs on the list of ways to identify such a person.

 

            So what does Reacher do? Quickly get off the train like most folks and hope that the woman doesn't detonate herself before you can escape? Of course not. But he keeps ratcheting up the tension until it's almost unbearable.

 

We looked straight at each other for the best part of ten seconds. Then I got to my feet. Braced against the motion and took a step. I would be killed thirty feet away, no question. I couldn't get any deader by being any closer. I passed the Hispanic woman on my left. Passed the guy in the NBA shirt on my right. Passed the West African woman on my left. Her eyes were still closed. I handed myself from one grab bar to the next, left and right, swaying. Passenger number four stared at me all the way, frightened, panting, muttering. Her hands stayed in her bag.

                        I stopped six feet from her.

                        I said, "I really want to be wrong about this."

            She didn't reply. Her lips moved. Her hands moved under the black canvas. The large object in her bag shifted slightly.

                        I said, "I need to see your hands."

                        She didn't reply.

                        "I'm a cop," I lied. "I can help you."

                        She didn't reply.

                        I said, "We can talk."

                        She didn't reply.

 

            If you look up "page-turner" in the dictionary, you should see Lee Child's picture. Gone Tomorrow is a thriller from its gripping start to its exciting climax.

 

Buy it here on Amazon.