Swift and savage and smart, Rector’s thriller delivers high tension with low-key ease, underscoring the way bad karma can disrupt a good life. Literary in the best, most unpretentious sense, Already Gone is superior pulp in the grand James M. Cain tradition.” —Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition
“Already Gone is a terse, moody thriller by a novelist who I consider to be one of the very best new writers to enter the scene in a very long time…John Rector is a game changer.” —Spinetingler Magazine
“At a time when most suspense is more filler than thriller, John Rector’s third novel drags the genre kicking and screaming back to its roots. Already Gone is a thriller in its purest and most cinematic incarnation—not a word or emotion wasted, it’s a taut, nerve-jangling ride that barrels towards an electrifying conclusion, which will leave you shaken, stirred, and above all else eagerly awaiting the next Rector novel.” —Ray Banks author of Saturday’s Child and Gun
“John Rector really knows how to pour on the intensity and leave his readers with a smile on their faces. Rector has written a fast-moving thriller that will take you on a trip through the life of a man who, in his youth, inflicted pain and suffering…Now his past has come back to haunt him and he’s paying a big price.” —DJ Weaver, Suspense Magazine
Praise for Wall Street Journal bestselling author John Rector
”John Rector piques our curiosity at every page turn and leaves us hanging at each chapter ending.” —New York Journal of Books
“It’s time to get on board, before Rector stops being ‘the next big thing’ and becomes the phenomenon he deserves to be.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Swift and savage and smart, Rector [writes]…superior pulp in the grand James M. Cain tradition.” —Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition
“…One of the very best new writers to enter the scene in a very long time…John Rector is a game changer.” —Spinetingler Magazine
“A bestselling author who doesn’t make us embarrassed to have his books on our shelves.” —The Nerd of Noir
“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.” —Baltimore Reads
“[Rector’s] consistent excellence in storytelling is already proving his calling card.” —Books and Writers
“John Rector writes a lean, mean mystery.” —Lincoln Journal Star
“If Rector came out with a book tomorrow, it would be at the top of my ‘to-be-read’ list by nightfall! He has refined his craft, opening new possibilities for the future. Wherever he goes, I’ll follow.” —Grift Magazine
In Rector's third novel (after The Grove and The Cold Kiss), newly hired young English professor Jake Reese and his wife, an art buyer, have been married only a month, and there is a great deal they don't know about each other's past—to a dangerous extent. When two thugs attack Jake and cut off his ring finger, he is horrified and bewildered, finally seeking help from a foster uncle with apparent mob connections. Further death threats confuse him, and then his wife dies in a car accident. When Jake discovers she had connections to his own imprisoned father, he realizes the threats may have something to do with her. More developments come to light, involving diamonds, hijacking, betrayals, and murder. VERDICT The suspense and plot twists are gripping. While the first-person, present-tense narration and oddly unsatisfying ending give the work a pulp-fiction air, it also has that genre's appealing raw action, cliff-hanging chapter endings, and graphic, cinematic drama. In spite of its flaws, this one is hard to put down.—Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
