On the Reading Table: "No Middle Name: The Complete Collected JackReacher Stories"

Lee Child

It's been a long time since I've read some mystery/ crime fiction. I've been reading mostly non-fiction for quite a spell. I've long enjoyed the crime fiction writings of Lee Child -- they remind me of the work of another favorite, John D. MacDonald -- which makes perfect sense -- since I read somewhere that Child was inspired by MacDonald in his approach to storytelling. Anyway, I snagged this recent "Jack Reacher" paperback from a "Little Free Library" in Anchorage, and finally started my pleasure reading. 

"This anthology compiles the complete collection of 'Reacher' short stories to date and includes an original novella, 'Too Much Time,' which leads into 'The Midnight Line' (the 22nd Reacher novel) alongside eleven reader favorites -- 'Deep Down,' 'Everyone Talks,' 'Guy Walks into a Bar,' 'High Heat,' 'James Penney’s New Identity' (the original version which is longer), 'Maybe They Have a Tradition,' 'No Room at the Motel,' 'Not a Drill,' 'Second Son,' 'Small Wars,' and The Picture of the Lonely Diner.'"

Crime Fiction Masters: A Titan of Thrillers: Lee Child

I started reading this crime/thriller series, and I got so hooked, I read every book in the series obsessively, one after the other, until I had finall read them all to date.

Jack Reacher is the fictional character created by British author Jim Grant who writes under the pen name of Lee Child.

Lee Child is the author of sixteen Jack Reacher thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, and The Hard Way, and the #1 bestsellers Worth Dying For, 61 Hours, Gone Tomorrow, Bad Luck and Trouble, and Nothing to Lose. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and Nero awards for Best Novel.

The Jack Reacher novels:

1. Killing Floor (1997)
2. Die Trying (1998)
3. Tripwire (1999)
4. Running Blind (2000)
5. Echo Burning (2001)
6. Without Fail (2002)
7. Persuader (2003)
8. The Enemy (a prequel, time frame occurs before Killing Floor) (2004)
9. One Shot (2005)
10. The Hard Way (2006)
11. Bad Luck and Trouble (2007)
12. Nothing to Lose (2008)
13. Gone Tomorrow (2009)
14. 61 Hours (2010)
15. Worth Dying For (2010)
16. The Affair (2011) another prequel to Killing Floor