Safe Enough: And Other Stories

by Lee Child Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Lee Child takes a step away from Jack Reacher with stories of assassins, gangsters and more — Safe Enough is your next favorite crime-fighting collection.

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, this collection shows the author's mastery of the short form.



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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"For three decades, year in and year out, Lee Child has been the best thriller writer in the world. No question."— Michael Connelly, multiple #1 New York Times bestseller

"Child gleefully toys with readers’ expectations, mirroring his duplicitous characters as he performs a series of satisfying bait-and-switches. . . . These stories prove that Child has more to offer than the head-splitting exploits of his most popular action hero."— Publishers Weekly

"Stories about cops, hired killers, FBI agents, good people, and very bad people, written in Child’s usual unadorned, minimalist prose style . . . Child’s many fans won’t think twice before picking this one up, but the book might also serve to introduce, to people who prefer short fiction, this deservedly popular novelist."— Booklist

"It's Lee Child. Why would you not read it?"— Karin Slaughter

"The stories are quirky, entertaining, and often frankly a lot of fun. . . . Not a single Jack Reacher story or doppelganger in here, that’s true—and yet maybe this is the collection of stories that Reacher might carry with him next time he sticks out a thumb."— NY Journal of Books

"It's nice to see [Child] spread his wings by stepping inside these many different characters and working his literary magic."— BookReporter

"This is a great summer read. . . . There are potentially twenty full-length novels here, or forty hours of screenplays, but you’ll romp through them in a happy afternoon."— Spectator

"An enticing snack-like book, full of jaunty tales, twists and violence . . . It is an entertaining read and shows why Child has such a strong following."— The Independent

"Twenty tasty morsels, served over easy [that] satisfy our innate craving to read about other people’s failings and misadventures."— Kirkus

Kirkus Reviews

2024-09-28
A collection of short stories featuring the seedier side of life by one of the country’s best crime writers.

“Fabergé eggs they ain’t,” Child admits in the foreword, and he’s right. These are unfancy little eggs—to stretch the metaphor—that don’t overshadow his novels, and yet they satisfy our innate craving to read about other people’s failings and misadventures. Some of them end in twists that harken back to O. Henry, such as “Ten Keys,” where a drug-running escapade ends in a surprising way. It also has the book’s best line: “He was a white guy…the product of too many generations of inbred hardscrabble hill people, his DNA baked down to nothing more than the essential components, arms, legs, eyes, mouth.” “My First Drug Trial” is also like that, with a last line that pops off the page. In “The Bodyguard,” a guy is hired to protect a young woman who is the high-value target of a rich and prominent couple. A nice twist at the end makes the bodyguard doubt himself, and the reader might smile. And then, in “The Greatest Trick of All,” there’s a professional killer who can nail you from a thousand yards and thinks he can’t be stopped. Said “greatest trick” is getting paid twice for a hit, but in this case, he might be mistaken. Most of the stories won’t keep you on the edge of your seat, but they’re easy, brief explorations of the darker nooks and crannies of humanity. But one story takes a sad turn into the past: In “New Blank Document,” a freelancer is assigned to write a sidebar about the brother of a modestly accomplished Black American artist living in Paris. The crucial, heart-rending story has to do with the fate of a second brother not everyone knows about; think Jim Crow. Finally, the title tale features a narrator you’d never want to meet in real life.

Twenty tasty morsels, served over easy.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191868813
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	09/03/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos