One of my main complaints about a lot of current novels is that they're too blasted long. So an anthology like this is a great thing for me, allowing me to sample the work of quite a few authors I've been meaning to try without having to commit to a doorstop of a novel. I wasn't too sure about the idea of writing thrillers as short stories -- the thriller genre seems to need a bit more scope than that, at least novella-length -- but most of the authors represented here pull off the trick very neatly.
Another nice thing about this anthology, and the whole concept of "thrillers" as defined by International Thriller Writers, Inc., the book's sponsor, is the variation in the types of stories allowed in that genre. While it's true that this particular anthology skews toward espionage yarns and legal thrillers, there are several historical stories, including Ted Bell's excellent "The Powder Monkey", featuring pirates, sea battles, and sword fights; and at the other end of the spectrum we have the vaguely science-fictional, action-packed "Kowalski's in Love" by James Rollins.
In every big anthology, there are bound to be a few stories that don't appeal of every reader. In this book, out of 30 stories, there were only a handful that I started, didn't like, and didn't finish. All the others ranged from fair to very good. My favorites were the Bell and Rollins stories mentioned above, plus:
"James Penney's New Identity" by Lee Child -- People have been recommending Child's books to me for years, and based on this story, they were right. I really enjoyed his style. This one ties in with his Jack Reacher books, which I intend to read soon.
"Interlude at Duane's", F. Paul Wilson -- Likewise, friends keep telling me I need to read Wilson's Repairman Jack novels. Again, based on this story, they were right. It's an urban shoot-em-up, as action-packed as the Rollins story. I have a copy of THE TOMB. Got to get to it soon.
"Success of a Mission", Dennis Lynds -- No surprise I'd like this story by Lynds. He's been one of my favorite authors for many years. Decades, actually.
"The Athens Solution", Brad Thor -- I've read Thor's first novel featuring Secret Service agent and counterterrorism expert Scot Harvath, THE LIONS OF LUCERNE, and liked it quite a bit, although I thought it was about twice as long as it needed to be (there's that gripe again). Harvath's a really good character, and this story is nice and tight, with a decent twist in the plot.
I also liked the stories by Steve Berry, Grant Blackwood, Gregg Hurwitz, J.A. Konrath, and M. Diane Vogt, and most of the others were pretty good, too. I've only read novels by three of the authors represented in this anthology -- Dennis Lynds, David Morrell, and Brad Thor -- but I intend to remedy that where some of the others are concerned.
3 comments:
My favorite by far was "Kowalski's in Love" by James Rollins. I've never quite believed it was possible to write a decent thriller short story, one that had a beginning, middle, and end with a real plot and even a twist or two in the short space of a short story, but I thought Rollins did it. And the ending (and title) caught me pleasantly by surprise.
Best,
Mark Terry
www.mark-terry.com
There's a Mammoth anthology of spy short stories and I think there are some spy short stories that are quite good, especially one by John Jakes. I don't remember the title for it anymore, but it was published in the Intrigue magazine in the mid-sixties.
I've been a fan of F. Paul Wilson's work for a long time.
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