Description

---

“I love writing Reacher but these stand-alone stories were a real delight for me . . . It was liberating. And fun.”—Lee Child



Twenty crime stories by the creator of Jack Reacher, never before collected

For the past twenty years, Lee Child has been one of the bestselling authors in the world, thanks to the popularity of his iconic and instantly recognizable hero Jack Reacher. But even at the height of Reacher’s fame, Child’s short story writing was not confined to the series; throughout the course of his career, he published tales about a range of characters on both sides of the law, including assassins, a body guard, CIA and FBI agents, gangsters, and more. Meticulously plotted and packed with Child’s trademark action and suspense, the stories show the author’s mastery of the short form, and they’ve never been collected before now.



In “Ten Keys,” a drug-dealing hit man feels that he must unburden his fears and guilt to a stranger. A rookie cop in “Normal in Every Way” is assigned to the department’s file room, where he makes connections to historic dates that could lead to solving crimes. A methodical bodyguard quits his job when he’s outsmarted. A military mission is planned to perfection. A potential worker for the Manhattan Project is carefully surveilled by an FBI agent. A killer preys on other killers. Taken together, these stories are a riotous calamity of criminals and crime fighters; individually, they are expertly crafted, piercing tales that hit hard enough to leave a mark.



These twenty intriguing, thrilling, and rapid-fire fictions are sure to please new and longtime fans of Child and to illuminate a side of the author’s work unknown to Reacher devotees. Featuring a colorful new introduction from the author, the collection stands as the first book written entirely by Child in three years.

About the Author

---

Lee Child was born on October 29, 1954, in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV’s “golden age.” During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. But he was fired in 1995 at the age of forty as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars’ worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series.

Praise For…

---

[Lee Child is] a born storyteller and an astute observer.
— Publishers Weekly