What is not to love when the best female and male mystery and thriller authors match up ! I enjoyed the pairing of such fine authors and the short stories were fast paced and fun to read. A highly enjoyable read.

As always with a short story collection, there will be those that you like and those that you don't. In this collection, I am pleased to say, the thumbs up occurred for me much more than the thumbs down. The concept in and of itself is ingenious; that a male and a female thriller writer will be paired together to write a story containing both of their most famous characters and there are some truly wonderful partnerships. The interplay between Temperance Brennan and Jack Reacher is feisty and full of sexual frisson, while the grudgingly earned respect between Ty Hauck and Harper Connelly in a supernaturally infused tale is very interesting. My particular favourite was the Karin Slaughter and Michael Koryta offering. This was the longest story in the collection and yet the pacing was such that I flew through it. Both the plot and the melding of the characters was excellent and it has made me eager to read novel length works from both authors. This collection isn't perfect, but it's a compelling read for the most part.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Lee Child (editor), and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book, which allows me to provide you with an honest review.

When asked to take the editorial lead in the latest International Thriller Writers (ITW) anthology, Lee Child jumped at the opportunity.

22 of some of the most popular mystery writers are paired together to collaborate. Each taking one of their well known main characters and throwing them together, creating mini tales of suspense that are truly quite engaging, more so in some of the short stories, than others.

A great following from the first Face Off, and with a great introduction by Lee Childs with a little information before each story.

I believe some stories and characters came out better and more realistic than others, and have given a score for each story, it helped that some characters I had read before, and with this book do want to read some of the other authors.

Sandra Brown/CJ Box 4 stars, two great characters and want to read CJ BOX especially.
Val McDermind/Peter James 3 stars, not quite so fast paced as first.
Kathy Reich/Lee Childs 3 stars, not quite an action packed role for Reacher, but okay.
Diana Gabaldon/Steve Berry 3 stars.
Gale Lynds/Dave Morrell 3 stars
Karin Slaughter/Michael Koryta 4 stars, due to, especially Karin Slaughter humour.
Charlaine Harris/Andrew Gross 3 stars
Lisa Jackson/John Sandford 4 stars. Worked well.
Lara Adrain/Christopher Rice 2 stars, just not for me.
Lisa Scottoline/Nelson De Mille 4 stars. Two great strong characters
J.A Jance/Eric Van Lustbader 2 stars. just not for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This is a collection of short stories, each written by a duo of popular mystery-thriller-crime authors (John Sandford, Kathy Reichs, Nelson DeMille, Lisa Scottoline and J. A. Jance are the ones I’ve previously read, to name a few.) I missed the first collection, FaceOff, and will need to add that to my reading list. In this collection, the twist is that the authors are paired by opposite gender. The result is an entertaining collection of tales, each very different from the others. The authors have taken one of their characters, each strong on their own, and skillfully woven a story featuring both characters. The duos did a great job of blending their writing styles and their characters so neither was dominant over the other. Skillful storytelling!

Sometimes short stories are unsatisfying, but this collection was engaging. This is an enjoyable book to read when you only have snatches of time to devote. Take it to the beach!

I was really excited to read this book as I thought it woiuld be great to sample a bunch of different authors work. Unfortunately my excitement didn't last long. Some of the stories were very good, but I found myself missing something and struggling to keep going. I am thinking that it is the fact that I really enjoy whole books that are only one story versus a work of short stories. I got bored very easily reading this book. I think I will stick to reading books by authors that I enjoy or choosing books by new authors that interest me instead of being stuck with a bunch of authors I normally wouldn't read. This format might be enjoyable by others, but it was not a good fit for me.

A clever collection of short stories, co-authored by well-known thriller writers, provides an ideal summer respite. There's no way this book won't be the perfect addition to every vacation or weekend getaway. If, like me, you haven't met an author before, these stories provide a welcome introduction. For those I already knew, it was just a pleasure to meet them in this setting. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I enjoyed this collaboration of short stories. Great to see some of my favourite characters meeting up and interacting with each other.

Matchup is a pleasant variation on a theme. Rather than a compilation of strung together chapters resulting in a story with a different author taking a different chapter this book is a compilation of short stories where two renowned authors collaborate on a single story. Each author is able to weave their trademark character into the story. The results are all well worth your time. I read all and was left wanting more. I hope there are more collaborations forthcoming.

My summary to this eclectic mish mosh assortment of short stories?

CLEVER!!

22 of some of the most popular mystery writers are paired together to collaborate. Each taking one of their well known main characters and throwing them together, creating mini tales of suspense that are truly quite engaging!

I think what I enjoyed the most actually had nothing to do with any of the plot lines or suspense. I found the witty humor and banter that was displayed between the characters (several of which that I recognized) to be the most memorable stand out!

It's hard to pick a favorite, as each offers their own special 'something' that makes it's plot unique.
This is truly a must read for any short story OR mystery fan that likes a strong character lead.

ARC provided by NetGalley

Amazing writers and even better stories presented in this collection of thrillers. A must read for fans of suspense writers and their writings.

Good follow up to Face Off. Great collection of short stories that will hold your interest. These stories are short enough to read while eating lunch or waiting for children, etc. My favorite was Short Story. I do recommend this "Matchup" to all!! Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC copy of this book in return for my honest review.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review. This anthology was wonderfully put together, taking 11 female and 11 male mystery writers and teaming them up to write 11 very different short stories is an unusual concept. Each author took 1 of their most popular characters and teamed them with the other, and instead of battle royals, we received seamless stories, where if it wasn't for the characters you would never know it was 2 separate authors. There were several authors I've never read before, and all I can say is, now I can't wait to dig in to their back lists!

Let me to open by admitting I'm not thrilled by this collection's subtitle; THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES JUST GOT THRILLING! makes me roll my eyes more than anything. However, as I quite enjoy reading some of the authors involved, I rolled my eyes at outdated gender binaries and oppositions--but started reading anyway.

MatchUp consists of eleven short stories co-authored by pairs of bestselling male and female writers in the International Thriller Writers organization. Each story features at least one of each contributor's best known characters. Yes, that means Temperance Brennan and Jack Reacher find themselves thrown together to prove Dr. Brennan's innocence in Kathy Reichs and Lee Child's story "Faking a Murderer." Matched pairs of iconic characters traveled across country, oceans, and, in the case of Diana Gabaldon and Steve Berry's collaboration, "Past Prologue", time to meet their counterparts.

Whether groaning through the numerous puns in "Footloose" or waiting for the next gunshot in "Honor & ...", I enjoyed reading this collection which has a generous share of both humor and action. Best of all, having been thus introduced to a number of interesting new characters, I have quite a few new thriller and mystery novels to add to my reading list.

I received a copy of MatchUp from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

First came Face Off from a stellar group of best-selling authors who were paired up to write short stories that incorporated their iconic protagonists. It was wildly successful. Now, International Thriller Writers brings you Match Up. Here, best-selling authors are paired in male-female duets to do the same. The results are an amazing collation of some of the best short fiction you will ever read. Do yourself a favor—-buy this one now. You will rip thought these stories and be enthralled with each.

DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Jake Longly, Samantha Cody, and Dub Walker thriller series

This is a great collection of short stories, much like the previous, Face Off. In Match Up, there once again is a collection of stories in collaboration of authors, but it is a combination of male and female authors. I loved getting the short history before hand of how the authors wrote together. I learned new authors I had never hear before, and of course loved even more the ones I loved before. Fans of this genre will recognize many of these authors, but you may be surprised and discover someone you had never found before now.

My favorites included my favorite authors of course, Val McDermid, Karin Slaughter and new-ish authors writing about characters Dr. Temperance Brennan & Jack Reacher. I have read only one Brennan book, but it had been long ago, and I was not wild about it, but this story makes me want to try each of these. I also read stories about characters I had only heard of, but never read, and this anthology encourages you to learn and read more.

The first story was not good for me, however. I did not care for the characters, or setting, but that was because I am not into that type of novel. But, it was still okay. That was one of the few I was not crazy about.

Get ready, you have a new book that you will devour quickly! Don't fight it, just give in and read.

This is a fun collection of short stories written by collaborating teams of some of the best thriller writers today. With an introduction to each each short story written by Lee Child, he discusses how the pair of authors (a male and a female) were matched together, sometimes it was for their similarities, sometimes for their differences in order to develop a whole new dynamic story. There are appearances by favorite well know characters like Child's Jack Reacher and Karin Slaughter's Jeffrey Tolliver, even Rambo makes a bit of a cameo. I would recommend this collection to those who like mystery and thrillers. You may even discover a new favorite author like I did.

This book was amazing the pairing of the different authors and combining of the characters from different series was thrilling. It was wonderful to see just how these would work out because of the range of series used for the book. The authors did an excellent job and created an spectacular book!!

A good read. Most of the stories were interesting enough to hold your attention. There was a few that I didn't really care for but the good ones outweigh the bad.

I have not read the first one, FaceOff, but I plan to now. This book was great! I do love short stories, and this group of short stories are written by some of the finest mystery writers today. Lee Child, John Sandford, Kathy Reichs, and many others, some I had not heard of. But the stories were great. I hope they do this again. It was nice to read a few a day and just enjoy them. I highly recommend this book by so many great authors.

I really enjoyed these short stories, even though I haven't read many of the authors before. It is such a neat concept to have beloved characters from different series "run into" other characters. I wish more genres would do something like this!