Already Gone by John Rector
Nebraska-born author John Rector already has two bestselling novels under his belt (The Grove and The Cold Kiss) and is set to have a third with the October 25th release of Already Gone. If you enjoy a book filled with mysterious deaths, ruthless villains, and countless plot twists and turns, read on.
Readers can tell right from the beginning that Jake Reese is not the most fortunate of men. He finds himself face down in the parking lot of a bar, at the mercy of two mysterious men (one of which is holding a bolt cutter to Jake’s ring finger). Questions surrounding Jake’s troubled past begin to surface as the police investigate this seemingly random act of violence, straining the relationship between Jake and his wife Diane and making Jake wonder if he should do some digging around himself. He refrains from interfering at the request of Diane, but when she goes missing, he doesn’t hesitate to step back into his former life in order to find and save the woman he loves.
Rector brings some really impressive writing and strong characters into a genre that is often teeming with contrived, cringe-worthy dialogue and flat, unoriginal characters. The main character, Jake Reese, has an interesting back story that constantly has the reader wondering what is going to happen next and who is behind the awful things that are occurring. With a mother who took her own life when he was young and a father who was constantly in jail, Jake found himself living under the guidance of a mobster of sorts, Gabby Meyers. Before long, Jake was getting into trouble of his own – it took the friendship of Doug, a tutor who met Jake while he was in juvenile detention, to set Jake on the right path. Now a college professor and the author of his own memoir, Jake is far removed from the mistakes of his youth. Readers can’t help but feel sorry for a man who is still suffering from his past despite finding a way to make something of himself.
Reese is surrounded by people that bring out his true personality throughout the novel. He has a soft spot for Diane, his new wife who has accepted him, past and all. However, her fear of what Jake’s past actions is bringing to the present sends her on a “business trip” for an extended period of time. Jake can see the current violence is chasing Diane away, which sends him to the bottle. Readers also get the chance to meet Jake’s father figure, Gabby, when Jake hits rock bottom. Gabby claims to be retired from his illegal and ruthless ways, but is willing to pull some strings to help out Jake. Jake’s respect for this man as a stand-in father is obvious, even though Gabby is partly responsible for the life Jake led as a boy.
My only complaint about Already Gone would be the ending (don’t worry, I won’t give it away!). Throughout the story, Rector kept throwing curveballs that had me constantly changing my mind on who I thought the “bad guy” really was. Everyone seemed suspicious except Jake (thanks to first-person narration), and when certain characters were revealed for their true colors, I absolutely loved that I had never even suspected them in the first place. It is rare to find a suspense novel in which the author is actually able to hide the true culprit until he deems it fit to reveal them. And yet the end seemed a little too neat for me. It wasn’t horrible, it just fell a little flat compared to the rest of the novel.
When all is said and done, though, Rector’s Already Gone lives up to the hype that his previous novels have set. His novel Cold Kiss is being made into a movie, and I could easily see Already Gone making it to the big screen as well.
–Meaghan McKeron
