‘Gone Tomorrow’ (Books)

Like his hero, Jack Reacher, Lee Child seems to make no wrong steps.

Child has turned out his 13th novel about the former military police officer whose skills border on the superhero level, again finding Reacher caught up in a dangerous situation that only he can resolve. It is one that will get much, much worse before it gets better.

This time it’s Reacher’s training on terrorism and bombers that gets him involved.

Reacher is one of a handful of passengers on a Manhattan subway at 2 a.m. when he sees a woman who fits the infallible profile of a suicide bomber.

The woman, dressed in an out-of-season bulky coat, is clutching her bag and mumbling to herself.

When he approaches her, Reacher kicks off a chain of events that pits him against everyone from the police and FBI to a mysterious beautiful woman and her mother, with almost deadly results.

The suspense in the novel is not generated by the dangerous situations in which Reacher finds himself — he and the readers assume he can handle those. It comes from the plot twists and the variety of characters that people Child’s story.

Child wraps up all his loose ends and satisfies with some great “a-ha” moments.

Green Day (Music)

After reinventing themselves as serious rock artists and reviving their commercial fortunes with “American Idiot,” Green Day is in the unusually awkward position of following a masterpiece.

So what do the Berkeley, Calif., punks do? They uncork “21st Century Breakdown” (Reprise) — an album that’s bigger, broader and even more ambitious than “Idiot,” an album that manages to cram in both more potential hits and more far-reaching sociopolitical statements. Yes, they’ve raised the bar once again.

This time, Billie Joe Armstrong and friends are telling the stories of Christian and Gloria — two idealists trying to make sense of 21st century America, suffocated by war and diminished prospects. The tale unfolds in three parts: “Heroes and Cons,” which includes the in-your-face single “Know Your Enemy” and outlines the mess they’re in; “Charlatans and Saints,” where they try to work things out in “Last of the American Girls,” driven by Mike Dirnt’s grooving bass line; and “Horseshoes and Grenades,” where they try to pull themselves out of the tailspin, before the album is capped with the hopeful “See the Light.”

What makes “21st Century Breakdown” so stunning is that not only do these future sing-alongs mean something separately, but they mean even more when they’re linked. In this short- attention-span age when singles rule, Green Day has meticulously built a 70-minute rock opera that offers a heavy payoff for listening to it as a whole.

‘Sanctuary’ (Books)

“Sanctuary” (Minotaur, 203 pages, $24.95), by Ken Bruen: Jack Taylor, disgraced Irish police officer, is back for his seventh novel, and all the brawling and drinking in the first six have taken a toll on him. He’s walking with a limp now. He no longer has all his teeth. He wears a hearing aid. And he feels as bad as he looks.

So when a psychopath going by the name “Benedictus” sends Jack a shopping list of future kills — one cop, one judge, one nun — he’s inclined to ignore it. Then he notices the last item on the list: a child.

“Sanctuary,” like the previous Taylor novels, is pure noir, the characters ranging from evil to defeated, the atmosphere gloomy to the point of despair, the writing as sharp as a razor slicing a windpipe.

Noir originated in America but could well have started in Ireland, with its history of blood feuds, famine, invasions and insurrections. You can feel the weight of that history in the character of Jack Taylor, and the author brings it all up to date with references to the decaying influence of the Roman Catholic church and the erosion of Irish culture in the face of globalization.

The result is a remarkable book that is at once as American as James M. Cain and as Irish as a shot of Jameson’s. Once again, Ken Bruen has borrowed the noir style, changed it around and given it back to us as something fresh and new.