The idea of MATCHUP is simple, the execution complex. Take 22 authors of thriller literature and pair them and their most notable characters up by opposite --- not to say opposing --- sex. It would be easy to call it a gimmick, but it isn’t. It’s similar in execution to FACEOFF, a collaborative author effort edited by David Baldacci some years back that did not utilize the boy-girl pairing. This new effort is more than intriguing. Any one of these stories could be included in a master anthology and boldly shoulder its way to the forefront.

Lee Child --- whose own Jack Reacher has an encounter with Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan in “Faking a Murderer” --- did yeoman’s work in editing this anthology. Child also provides short introductions to each of the stories as well as to the collection itself. The authors, all members of the International Thriller Writers, were separated by viewpoint, geography and, with respect to some of their characters, time, yet somehow made each and every one of the 11 stories in this smartly put-together volume memorable.

"Each original story here does exactly what a project of this sort is supposed to do: draw in fans of each author, expose authors to readers unfamiliar with their work, and make everyone who cracks the binding on the volume happy. MATCHUP succeeds on all counts."

Some of the pairings seem (and are) natural. Val McDermid and Peter James bring their respective Tony Hill and Roy Grace characters to “Footloose,” about a pair of gruesome discoveries that lead to a larger crime. It’s a well-done short mystery, with a series of dark puns and wisecracks --- the kind that you hear around crime scenes --- taking the edge off of the grimness of the investigation. And what could be more natural than a meeting of the creative muses of Gayle Lynds and David Morrell? If I were approached to create an anthology of this nature, this is the first pairing I would reflexively consider. Lynds and Morrell founded the International Thriller Writers, and a tale titled “Rambo on Their Minds” brings Morrell’s iconic creation into contact (in a manner of speaking) with Lynds’ groundbreaking and glass-busting Liz Sansborough in a story that features kidnapping, ransom, revenge and mayhem. One wishes it would go on for far, far longer.

There are other pairings that don’t seem to compute at first, but somehow mesh seamlessly. I couldn’t picture Sandra Brown’s Lee Coburn with C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett, but “Honor &...” which opens MATCHUP, sees the two working together, even as they rub the edges off of their considerable differences by the end of the tale. A collaboration between J.A. Jance and Eric Van Lustbader would also seem to work against the conventional wisdom (for reasons that Child notes in his brief but fascinating introduction to the story), but “Taking the Veil,” about a hunt for the legendary veil of St. Veronica, draws Ali Reynolds and Bravo Shaw into the back end of Arizona where they are thrown together but function quite well, against the odds.

However, the biggest surprise in the volume is “Midnight Flame” by Lara Adrian and Christopher Rice. Adrian and Rice write fine, separate series separated by geography and a quarter-century. But “Midnight Flame” brings Adrian’s Lucan Thorne from Boston to New Orleans for a short but momentous meeting with Rice’s Lilliane, in which the fates of their respective breeds hang in the balance. It’s indeed a surprise, and a welcome one, particularly if one reads paranormal or romantic suspense fiction on a less than regular basis, and features an occasional good-natured if expected jibe at a certain mainstream series as well.

I can’t pick a winner here. I just can’t. The aforementioned “Faking a Murderer” brings Child’s Jack Reacher into contact with Reichs’ Temperance Brennan. Reacher comes to Brennan’s aid when her reputation as a forensic expert is called into question over whether a certain deceased was murdered or committed suicide. Reacher has the answer, and for good reason. “Deserves to Be Dead” by Lisa Jackson and John Sandford takes place in Montana, where Sandford’s Virgil Flowers, ostensibly on one of his many vacations, finds himself reluctantly involved in a murder investigation with Jackson’s complicated but extremely expert Regan Pescoli in a tale that leads them both to places and crimes far beyond a single homicide. And there are several other stories, by Diana Gabaldon and Steve Berry, Karin Slaughter and Michael Koryta (worth buying MATCHUP for all by themselves), Charlaine Harris and Andrew Gross (file that one under “who would have thought, but it works, and works well”), and Lisa Scottoline and Nelson DeMille.

Don’t attach any importance to the stories I summarized over the ones that I did not. Each original story here does exactly what a project of this sort is supposed to do: draw in fans of each author, expose authors to readers unfamiliar with their work, and make everyone who cracks the binding on the volume happy. MATCHUP succeeds on all counts.