In typical Lee Child writing prose we get a series of great action packed shorter versions. Great stuff, highly recommended

Oh my Goodness! Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book. It’s been awhile since I have read short stories and I’m so glad I read these. I’m a huge Jack Reacher fan. But even though these didn’t include Reacher, I thoroughly enjoyed these stories. Each one was very twisted but interesting and well written. I highly recommend this book.

Popcorn. Unbuttered.

The stories are enjoyable.

The Kindle formatting jarring though.

The stories move at a steady pace that keeps you reading despite the format problems.

Working alone instead of carrying another writer definitely works for Lee. But no stories/character even hints at enough as something I'd imagine for a re-read.

As a big fan of Lee Child's Reacher books, I dove into this short story collection with high expectations. I wasn't disappointed. He can really write well developed characters and unexpected twists in the short story format. Highly recommended

Thanks to NetGalley and Mysterious Press for an advanced reader copy

Series of short stories. The book to me, was not like other Lee Child books and did not keep my interest.

This one was not for me. I obviously didn’t do any research or I would have realized this was a selection of short stories. They didn’t hold my interest. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

Lee Child's Jack Reacher books are fantastic! So I figured these short stories would be just as good. Unfortunately they did not hit the same spot as the full length Reacher books do. The stories were just too short. I would be fully immersed and then the end. Maybe short stories are not for me. Maybe these stories would have been better there was a bit more added on and they were novellas. Maybe they are fine and is exactly what other readers are looking for!

“I had overlooked short stories completely. I knew what they were, obviously. I had read and enjoyed hundreds. The best of them struck me as small, intricate, perfectly formed items, like Fabergé eggs.”*—Lee Child from the foreword.

This collection is entirely comprised of short stories that do not feature Lee Child’s most famous character, Jack Reacher. The joy of reading these stories is to see Child experiment with different protagonists and story worlds.

My favorites include:

The Bodyguard: A political kidnapping changes the trajectory of a bodyguard’s life.

Safe Enough: My favorite story in the collection involves an electrician who becomes involved in a missing person investigation.

Normal in Every Way: In this historical piece, a young police file clerk acts like a database putting the pieces together to solve crimes.

The .50 Solution: An assassin’s latest client has a few unusual requests.

The Bone-Headed League: An FBI agent’s murder investigation ties to a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Pierre, Lucien & Me: A cool tale of art fraud and regrets.

Shorty and the Briefcase: An injured cop uses his brainpower to assist in a bust.

The Snake-Eater by the Numbers: A corrupt cop boosts his arrest numbers with an unfortunate frame.

For me, this was a 3.5 star read, rounded up to four.

Thanks to Mysterious Press, an Imprint of Penzler Publishers, for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

*Please note that my review is based on uncorrected text, and the quoted material might be altered or removed from the final version of the book.

I love Jack Reacher books and have read each and every one. I liked the idea of short stories. They are just too short. I would really get into a few of them and then they just ended, I would have rather read some slighlty longer pieces with fewer of them, The book formatting also was difficult to follow as I wouldn't always know where one ended and the next began. I expect this to be fixed for the final version.

Safe Enough is a collection of short stories. Each of the stories has a very interesting premise. Unfortunately, the stories were TOO short. Just as they got interesting … boom … they ended. The writing style is, as usual, excellent, but I was left wanting an expanded tale.
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Safe Enough.

I’ve been a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books for many years. Having enjoyed the occasional Reacher short story, I was confident in Child’s ability to tell a compelling story in just a few pages. These stories were even better than expected! Despite expecting a twist in each story, I was almost aways surprised by what the twist turned out to be and the payoff that came with it. Many of the stories felt like Child’s chance to enjoy writing a bad guy protagonist with no pressure to make him redeemable or kill him off. Some stories made me hope to soon be reading a full novel about the protagonist, some made me wonder how long Child had been trying to weave the clever plot twist or interesting character into a longer book, and some were simple, perfect short stories that could and should be nothing else. My favorite part of Safe Enough, however, was the introduction. The short story of Child’s writing career and how it led him to publish this collection was the best (kind of) short story in the book! Given Child’s background, it’s no surprise two of the most compelling stories were the only ones lacking his trademark violence and instead having a writer as protagonist: New Blank Document and Dying for a Cigarette. As Child leaves Jack Reacher behind, I hope he will keep publishing short stories, and maybe start a new series inspired by one of the characters in Safe Enough. My vote is for a writer protagonist who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty if he has to but prefers getting to the bottom of a story to get justice.

Thank you to Penzler Publishers and NetGalley for the privilege of reading a DRC of this book. All opinions are my own.

This was such a great collection of short stories. So fast paced and packed with action. Although nothing will compare to the Jack Reacher series this collection of short stories really lets you enjoy Lee Childs' writing style. So worth the read.

Twisted! I love short stories, little vignettes that you can read while in the bathroom, or while nuking supper or whatever. I also love Lee Child:s Reacher series so I saw this and was insanely curious. Curiosity killed the cat they say, and mine this time paid off! This is not, I repeat, not Reacher! Reader be warned! However, it is utterly fascinating and comp!Steph twisted! The forward by the author warned that the stories are short and some are, only a page or so, but that page packs one heckuva punch! You're reading all g and think you've got it figured out and it pulls a switch back that leaves you shaking your head and going back, trying to figure our where you lost the thread that led to that switch! Absolutely wild! Loved it! Need more of his short stories!

This is a collection of stories, some short, some longer that Lee Child wrote during the years of his writing career. While nothing can compare to Reacher, in my opinion, these stories were a good read.

This is a collection of short stories authored by Lee Child over a twenty year span. It is an eclectic mix of work; some are very short, a few stories are longer as is typical of such a compilation. The majority of the stories deal with crime, police, etc. Some are very good, others just okay (IMO).

These are not Jack Reacher shorts, of which the author has several to his credit. You can tell some were written years ago when the author was honing his craft. Safe Enough is an easy read well suited for vacations or quick escapes.

I reviewed an ARC version that regretfully offered no table of contents, preface or other information about the origins of these stories. I hope the final version of the book offers some insights from the author about the collection of stories, why he wrote it, the characters, and any other facts the reader may find interesting.

Overall I give this collection of short stories three stars, or a "good" rating. It is hard to read Lee Child and not think of Jack Reacher, an iconic character that is still drawing book audiences and now a sizeable television audience with the Reacher series on Amazon Prime Video. No doubt that influenced how I approached this new book, even though I kept thinking "this isn't a Reacher book."

Interested readers should judge for themselves. I want to thank NetGalley, author Lee Child, and the publisher for the opportunity to review this new work. I attest my review is original and unbiased.

Lee Child's Reacher series is one of my favorite series and a must read on my TBR list. I had read a few of his Reacher centric short stories and enjoyed them. SAFE ENOUGH is a collection of short stories, all written by Lee Child and all non Reacher. But all are 5 star stories in and of themselves. As in all short story collections, some are more enjoyable than others but all of them kept my attention right up until I realized I had read the whole book in a short period of time.
Short storeis require a different set of skills from their author. The book's foreword by Lee Child explains how he came to write the stories and found they improved and enhanced his skills while still keeping his fans happy. A win, win all around.

Reacher is the God of Lee Child's universe. The Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. How did the new Reacher book, Safe Enough escape my attention? But. No. Not Reacher. My mistake, I beg your forgiveness.

Not Reacher, but a collection of short stories delving into all manner of crime, revenge, murder, and mayhem.

Enjoyable, fun, quick stories to get your engine going. Well done.

I generally prefer novels to short stories. I am a long time Jack Reacher fan. I did enjoy these stories and their twist endings.

Lee Child strikes again. And again. This is an interesting collection of stories because it doesn't focus on Jack Reacher. I had to adjust to that fact, but once I did, I found the various perspectives of the narrators fascinating. Especially when they were "bad guys." Highly recommended.

These are short little stories. They take no time to read Little bites of suspense. Lee Child is a master at writing. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.