While riding a NYC subway early in the morning, Reacher spots a woman, Susan Mark, who looks to be a potential suicide bomber. Pretending to be a cop, he tries to talk her out of detonating the bomb. Feeling pressured the lady pulls out a gun and kills herself. Reacher's appraisal of the woman being a bomber was wrong. Feeling guilty and curious, Reacher tries to find out what made her suicidal and quickly gets in trouble with the Feds, Cops and the bad "guys" that were extorting her to steal information from the DoD.
The main plot is a little slow to develop but its not boring for the author uses Reacher's logic to find a potential target of the exhortation plot and the Feds will go to great lengths to protect him from Reacher. The person of interest is Sansom, an ex Delta Force, who went on a black op in 1983 and he and the government wants that op kept secret.
While ignoring and evading the Feds, Reacher slowly learns the truth about the senator wannabe (Sansom) and the culprits (Hoths) who ignited this plot. The progression is deliberate but interesting.
I've admired Child's logic, knowledge and talent in developing his suspenseful stories. In this story finding the ex soldier, estimating where the terrorist crew is hiding out, describing Manhattan in good detail, teaching us how to fight against brass knuckles or knives is just a sampling of what's in store for the reader. I also like the author's fascination with numbers and numerical relationships.
He also shows the scary tactic by our government dispensing the rule of habeas corpus for the sake of "national security". The Patriot Act allows our government to break the law at their wish. Reacher could have been locked away for years without due process for being interested in this case.
As in many of his other books, there isn't much romance. There is one paragraph just before he goes to battle with the bad "guys" that he takes Theresa Lee to bed but don't blink or you'll miss it.
While there is some fighting, killing and gruesome torture scenes, its not gratuitous or excessive. There is not as much action in his later books as with his earlier books. From my perspective, this story is more cerebral as Reacher outthinks the Feds, cops while unraveling the truth and eliminating the lies while hunting down the terrorists all at the same time.
In the final chapter, Reacher makes a mistake that almost costs him his life when he underestimates the competition. The mistake makes for a more exciting ending but it's a mistake you don't expect Reacher to make and that was a little disappointing.
Providing just a glimpse into this fine book, without giving away the whole story, I highly recommend this book. Its one of Mr Child's best.Get more detail about Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher).
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