Gone Tomorrow

Lee Child has steadily accrued one of the keenest groups of admirers for any contemporary thriller writer – and the reason is easy to discern. In such gritty and authoritative novels as Tripwire, Killing Floor and Die Trying, Child established his tough itinerant protagonist Jack Reacher as a key modern hero, with a taciturn, hard-boiled appeal that has not palled over many books (though some have queried Jack’s transformation from a man who triumphed -- with difficulty – over insuperable odds – into a nigh-invulnerable super-hero).