Safe Enough: And Other Stories

“Not a single Jack Reacher story or doppelganger in here, that’s true—and yet maybe this is the collection of stories that Reacher might carry with him next time he sticks out a thumb.”

Jack Reacher doesn’t appear at all in this intriguing set of 20 crime stories from Lee Child. And that’s reason enough to pick up the collection and start enjoying them. What’s Lee Child like as an author, when he’s not writing the road warrior’s highly skilled investigations and conflicts? Does he create characters that shadow or throw light onto Reacher?

Nope. He doesn’t. But without the long luxurious hundreds of pages leading toward alliances and risky affection of the full-length novels, Child’s dark roots in classic noir come through vividly. Each tale becomes a pocket in a garment along a closet rail, filled with its own peculiar assortment of situations.

Child’s foreword is a delight, laying out how the stories came to be and wryly reflecting that none of them made any money, giving him an illusion that “no one was watching. It made the stakes nonexistent.” As a result, the stories are quirky, entertaining, and often frankly a lot of fun.

The opening story, “The Bodyguard,” is one that does whisper some of Reacher’s skills and attitudes, though. It’s got a smart and beautiful woman, and a man who thinks he can handle what she’s asked him to do. The twists come quickly, and the denouement is entirely satisfying. Then there’s the title story, “Safe Enough”: Anyone who’s hung around New York and its sprawling overflows will connect right away, but again, there’s a sucker punch coming—test yourself, see whether you can guess it before it’s obvious.

And what’s a crime story collection without a tip of the hat to Sherlock Holmes? You’ll probably know the A. Conan Doyle story that Child plays with when he offers “The Bone-Headed League,” but this is wilder than a Moebius strip in terms of how many nifty twists are embedded in it. The smart investigator telling you his version reminds you that 221B Baker Street never existed, and why. He does think he’s smart, doesn’t he? What’s he missing?

Properly savored, this collection should ideally be spread out for reading—one story swallowed (one pocket emptied), then a nice long rest to let the details and the clever pacing settle like a good meal. (Yes, those metaphors are contagious when you’re reading Lee Child, whether or not Reacher’s on hand.)

There are also some stories in here that soften and linger, without a slammed door of a finale, and those are worth taking slowly and even reading twice. “New Blank Document” is this kind of story, tender and poignant and not quite tied off. Lee Child may not feel he’s mastered the short story form (at least, that’s his modest assertion in his foreword), but the ability to reframe and shift among these suggests he’s actually a connoisseur of the small scenic interlude, the short-time witness to a life that doesn’t turn out the way the movies might suggest.

Reacher collectors could feel at first that this doesn’t really belong on the shelf with titles like Killing Floor or The Midnight Line. But read them a second time, and there’s another conclusion to draw: Not a single Jack Reacher story or doppelganger in here, that’s true—and yet maybe this is the collection of stories that Reacher might carry with him next time he sticks out a thumb.