No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories
Author: Lee Child
Publisher: Delacorte Press
ISBN-10: 0-3995-9357-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-3995-9357-4
Lee Child is the author of 21 Jack Reacher thrillers. 12 reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. All have been optioned for major motion pictures, 2 of which, starring Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, have already been released. This is the first collection of the Jack Reacher short stories, originally published between 1999 and 2016.
Jack Reacher is an ex-Army Military Police major, discharged, who has been just drifting around North America and Europe for years, sightseeing but invariably getting into tight situations involving murder or other serious crimes, and using his intelligence &/or his fighting skills to get out of them. The 21 novels are tremendously popular and are in most public libraries. This 2017 collection of 12 Jack Reacher short stories, $27.00 and 418 pages in hardcover, should please his fans. There are also paperback, Kindle, and audio CD editions.
To use the first story, “Too Much Time”, as an example, Reacher arrives in a small Maine town. He sees a purse-snatching in front of him and stops the thief. The police thank him for being a good citizen and ask him to come to the station to make a statement. “Ten minutes of your time.” Instead Reacher finds himself in a cell, facing prison for maybe decades if he isn’t murdered first. He fights, escapes, and solves why he was imprisoned.
The story arrangement is pleasing. First is a typical Reacher adventure, just shortened to only 54 pages. The next four stories are set in Reacher’s past, from age 13 as a Marine officer’s son on a military base to his career as an Army MP investigator. Stories #6 to #8 are more shortened current adventures with Reacher as a wanderer facing danger. #9 to #12 are increasingly shorter, down to under 10 pages, still thrillers but more intellectual mysteries, not involving life-threatening situations (for Reacher, anyhow).
The stories are varied from having the usual omniscient third-person narrator, to having either Reacher himself or one of the supporting characters as the narrator. In one 37-page story, Reacher himself is a minor supporting character, not appearing until just before the end.
“No Middle Name” is a must-have collection, for all thriller fans and libraries that have the Jack Reacher novels.
