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A review by macloo
No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories by Lee Child
4.0
I'm not the biggest fan of short stories, but I've got a slight Jack Reacher addiction, so when I came across a used copy of this collection, I went for it. In the short format we get distilled Reacher, minus the outlandish coincidences and lovingly long descriptions of firearms. We are treated to some of Reacher's typical short, brutal street fights, and of course trouble just seems to find him no matter how hard he tries to mind his own business. The author gets to step outside the formula a bit here.
Originally published between 2009 and 2017, plus one story from 1999, the stories vary widely in length. The longer ones ("Too Much Time," 63 pages, and "High Heat," 78 pages) were absorbing. The shortest ones were satisfying in their own way, given that I understand Reacher well by now.
In "High Heat," Reacher is 16 years old and footloose in New York in the July heat wave of 1977. I wasn't surprised to discover he was already mostly himself. In "Second Son," we meet his mother, living alone in a Paris apartment, and we get to know his brother, Joe, a little more. Joe also appears in "Small Wars" (47 pages). In "Everyone Talks," the first-person narrator is a detective who encounters Reacher briefly in a hospital bed. In the oldest story, "James Penney's New Identity," Reacher just makes a cameo appearance at the end — but it's a winner.
Probably not the best introduction to Reacher, but good stuff if you already know and like him.
.
Originally published between 2009 and 2017, plus one story from 1999, the stories vary widely in length. The longer ones ("Too Much Time," 63 pages, and "High Heat," 78 pages) were absorbing. The shortest ones were satisfying in their own way, given that I understand Reacher well by now.
In "High Heat," Reacher is 16 years old and footloose in New York in the July heat wave of 1977. I wasn't surprised to discover he was already mostly himself. In "Second Son," we meet his mother, living alone in a Paris apartment, and we get to know his brother, Joe, a little more. Joe also appears in "Small Wars" (47 pages). In "Everyone Talks," the first-person narrator is a detective who encounters Reacher briefly in a hospital bed. In the oldest story, "James Penney's New Identity," Reacher just makes a cameo appearance at the end — but it's a winner.
Probably not the best introduction to Reacher, but good stuff if you already know and like him.
.