Safe Enough and Other Stories

Child (the Jack Reacher series) compiles 20 previously published short stories in this brooding collection. Featuring mobsters, con men, assassins, and corrupt cops, Child’s self-described “very, very, very short novels” mostly focus on the worst of humanity. In “The .50 Solution,” a hit man is hired to kill a racehorse; in “My First Drug Trial,” an addict gets high before their moment of judgment; in “Me and Mr. Rafferty,” a serial killer leaves behind grisly clues in hopes of forging a connection with a detective. Throughout, Child gleefully toys with readers’ expectations, mirroring his duplicitous characters as he performs a series of satisfying bait-and-switches, most memorably in “Ten Keys,” which initially appears to center on two men in a bar waiting for an assassin. His dialogue, too, has the grit and punch of top-shelf crime fiction, though it’s easy to spot that many of Child’s characters sound alike when reading the stories back-to-back. These stories prove that Child has more to offer than the head-splitting exploits of his most popular action hero. Agent: Rebekah Finch, Darley Anderson Agency. (Sept.)