BOOKS: Gone Tomorrow: Lee Child

Apr. 29—The author of a recent ScreenRant article about how the Amazon television series had to make Jack Reacher "chatty" so he could communicate thoughts to viewers apparently never read the novels where Reacher is not just talkative but verbose.

"Gone Tomorrow" is one of the few Reacher books so far where he is the narrator.

Page 21 of Lee Child's 13th Reacher novel includes an ironic line, where Reacher notes "I'm not a hostage negotiator. I was just talking for the sake of it. Which is uncharacteristic. Mostly I'm a very silent person. It would be statistically very unlikely for me to die halfway through a sentence."

Well, that's not true, given Reacher then narrates the next 500-plus pages. That's a lot of talking for a guy known, according to the ScreenRant article, for the line: "Reacher said nothing."

Here, the story opens with Reacher aboard a New York City subway train where he sees a woman whose actions fit those of a suicide bomber. When he attempts to stop her, she shoots herself.

From there, Reacher is pulled into a plot involving military secrets from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, national security threats and the election campaign of a rising politician with a shrouded military past.

"Gone Tomorrow" is prime Jack Reacher, even if it is one where he is narrating which really doesn't fit the character as he admits himself before speaking tens of thousands more words.