MatchUp

This is the second in a series of anthologies in which famous authors collaborate to write short stories featuring their well-known protagonists. There are two inherent weaknesses in the concept. First, these authors are notable for their novels and short stories are not the best way to exhibit their talent. Second, between the short story format and the presence of two writers, the stories tend to suffer. My favorite tale in this volume is a collaboration between John Sandford and Lisa Jackson, and it’s important to note that an introduction plainly states that .Sandford wrote the draft and Jackson filled in some details. In a previous volume, a story by Sandford and Jefferey Deavers suffered from both writers sharing the task. Ultimately, this book is more of an introduction to favorite characters. If you like any of the protagonists, you’ll probably want to check out full-length novels by the authors.

I enjoyed “FaceOff”, the first collection of stories by the best writers of the thriller genre published as a fund raiser for the International Thriller Writers with the unusual combination of familiar characters. This one has an interesting twist in that it combines a female author and her best known character with a male author and his best known character. So one has for example, Kathy Reich’s bone specialist Temperance Brennan in a tricky situation with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher jumping in to assist. Or Lisa Scottoline’s Bennie Rosato and Nelson DeMille’s John Corey in another story. As with any anthology, one is bound to find a varying level of quality and some of the stories are great, some are “meh” but the book as a whole is a great read for thriller fans and a great way to sample some authors you may not have tried before. I also enjoyed the notes on the role of the authors in each story construction. I’ll be looking forward to a third should they get around to it.

I bought this book primarily because of the “matchup” of two of my all-time favorite fiction characters, attorney Bennie Rosato (Scottoline) and detective John Corey (DeMille.) I don’t generally like short stories, because they are over too soon, and this one was no exception. A full-length collaboration with these two would be like turning a kid loose in Disneyland. I liked the story as far as it went, however.

I was disappointed with Diana Gabaldon’s contribution. While it had the Scottish setting of “Outlander,” and a brief glimpse of Jamie Fraser, it had the same failings as most short stories. There wasn’t enough of it.

If you enjoy the authors listed here, and you don’t get irritated at the short story format, go for it. While I have not finished all of the stories, most of the ones I have read were worthwhile.

Authors I had no idea could write together were excellent matches! Every story maintained the quality of the authors previous writing while including some of their most popular characters in each story.

I really am a huge fan of all of these people. The only disappointment was the Gabaldon one – of all the people Cotton had to run into in Scotland, Geillis was one of the last people I wanted him to meet. He did manage that meeting very well but shes my least favorite person in the Outlander saga and I didnt want her to show up. The story had an excellent ending, though. I did enjoy every short story in this book and that is unusual as there are usually one or two not worth the read. Thanks for a great collaboration between great authors, this was a good read.

My only wish is that I could count them each separately so they would really speed me toward my reading challenge goal in Goodreads! LOL!

I bought this not realizing it was a collection of short stories. I decided to read it anyway because I knew and liked many of the contributing authors. I did not like this book because a short story doesn’t not allow character development, identifying clues and uncertainties, attempts at resolution and involvement of the reader. It is like seeing a snapshot of an interesting place rather than being their and getting to know the people and the things that make the place interesting.

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