Twenty years ago Reacher learned from an Israeli army captain about the defensive playbook that Israeli counterintelligence had written, listing the 12 telltale signs of suicide bombers.  Reacher thought that the woman sitting across from him in an almost empty New York subway car fitted all of those 12 points.  He approached the woman thinking to defuse what he thought was a potentially dangerous situation.  Instead of a bomb the woman withdrew a gun from her coat and blew her head off.

The woman was identified  as Susan Mark.  When Reacher meets her brother Jacob, a cop from New Jersey, Jacob claims his sister was no suicide. She worked at the Pentagon in the records department of the Human Resources Command, but why would federal agents appear on the scene and question Reacher as to whether she had given him anything.

Then he is confronted with another team of strangers questioning him. The names of Lela Holt and John Sansome are mentioned.  Reacher's curiosity is aroused.  He finds nothing about Lila Roth, but John Sansome is a congressman who is running for the U S Senate.  He was an army captain, a former Delta Force operative in Berlin.  Reacher finds a connection between Sansome's role there and Lila Roth, that set off the terrifying chain of events which culminated in Susan's suicide and possibly the death of Reacher.

Gone Tomorrow is Child’s usual action-packed, suspense-filled story with the intrepid Jack Reacher, armed only his ATM card and a collapsible toothbrush to carry him through his latest adventure.   The characters are well defined.  The action is fast paced.  The intelligence background is solid.

In my opinion Lee Child cannot write a mediocre book.  Each new one seems to be better than the previous one.  The only problem I find is there is too long a wait for the next exploit to unravel.

Highly recommended.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Without Fail #6
Persuader #7
The Hard Way #10
Bad Luck and Trouble #11
Nothing to Lose #12
Gone Tomorrow #13
Worth Dying For #15
The Affair #16
Never Go Back #18