Opening paragraphs.................

Jack Reacher caught the last of the summer sun in a small town on the coast of Maine, and then, like the birds in the sky above him, he began his long migration south.  But not, he thought, straight down the coast.  Not like the orioles and the buntings and the phoebes and the warblers and the ruby-throated hummingbirds.  Instead he decided on a diagonal route, south and west, from the top right-hand corner of the country to the bottom left, maybe through Syracuse, and Cincinnati, and St. Louis, and Oklahoma City, and Albuquerque, and onward all the way to San Diego.  Which for an army guy like Reacher was a little too full of Navy people, but which was otherwise a fine spot to start the winter.
     It would be an epic road trip, and one he hadn't made in years.
     He was looking forward to it.
     He didn't get far.

-Lee Child, Past Tense