29 January 2015.
ISBN: 978-0-5494-6
It must have seemed like a really good idea at the
time: get two popular fictional detectives together and have them chasing down
the baddies. And so it proved! Put Rebus and Roy Grace
together, or Jack Reacher with Nick Heller, pooling their brains, their
experience and their abilities, the reasoning must have been, and you can
scarcely go wrong. Gimmicky, yes. But in this collection of
original short stories, it works.
I particularly
enjoyed the long central story (practically a novel in itself!) where Lincoln
Rhyme meets Lucas Davenport. It also includes Amelia Sachs on Rhyme's
side and Lily Rothenburg on Davenport: psychological profiling working hand in
hand with forensic science to solve a particularly gruesome series of
killings.
Raymond Khoury's
FBI agent Sean Reilly working on the same case with Linwood Barclay's Glenn
Garber, the building contractor, is another of the star stories in this
collection. Not only because it's well-written and credible, but also
because of Garber's hungry but intrepid 10-year-old daughter, Kelly. The
plot involves a sinister stainless-steel canister which looks like an ordinary
Thermos, but whose contents could destroy the world – or at least, large
swathes of it. Needless to say, without Kelly, half of us would have been
blown to smithereens.
In another pick
of the crop, Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein team their characters together
in a fascinating case involving artefacts stolen from the Museum of Cairo
during the Arab Spring riots. t
All the stories
are high-class – that goes without saying, with writers of this calibre –
but some work better than others. Getting the protagonists together from
opposite ends of the United States was always going to be a little awkward and
for that reason there are occasional moments of clumsiness. I also feel
that Baldacci should not have subtitled each story as A vs B, since they
are actually working together, not against each other.
A thoroughly
enjoyable read, and I was delighted to find some authors whose work I hadn't
come across before.
------
Reviewer: Susan Moody
David Baldacci. A lifelong Virginian, David was born in Richmond in
1960. He received his Bachelor’s degree in political science from Virginia
Commonwealth University and his law degree from the University of Virginia
School of Law, after which he practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C.
He has published 22 books.
While
David is involved in several philanthropic organizations, his greatest efforts
are dedicated to his family’s ‘Wish You Well foundation.’ Established by David
and his wife, Michelle, the Wish You Well Foundation supports family literacy
in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion
of new and existing literacy and educational programs. In 2010 the Foundation
partnered with Feeding America to launch a program to address the connection
between literacy, poverty and hunger. Through Feeding Body & Mind, nearly 1
million new and used books have been collected and distributed through area
food banks. David explains, “With this program, people go home with food, which
they need to live, as well as with books, which they need to change their
lives.”
Susan Moody was born and brought up in Oxford. She
has published over 30 crime and suspense novels, including the Penny Wanawake
series and the Cassandra Swann bridge series. She is a past Chairman of
the British Crime Writers' Association, a member of the Detection Club, a past
Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tasmania and a past President of the
International Association of Crime Writers. She divides her time between
south-west France and south-east Kent. Nominated for the CWA short
story award. Nominated for the RNA's award.
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