Twenty crime stories by the creator of Jack Reacher, never before collected.

For the past 20 years, Lee Child has been one of the best-selling authors in the world, thanks to the popularity of his iconic and instantly recognizable hero, Jack Reacher. But even at the height of Reacher’s fame, Child’s short story writing was not confined to the series. Throughout the course of his career, he published tales about a range of characters on both sides of the law, including assassins, a bodyguard, CIA and FBI agents, gangsters and more. Meticulously plotted and packed with Child’s trademark action and suspense, the stories show his mastery of the short form. They’ve never been collected before now.

In “Ten Keys,” a drug-dealing hit man feels that he must unburden his fears and guilt to a stranger. A rookie cop in “Normal in Every Way” is assigned to the department’s file room, where he makes connections to historic dates that could lead to solving crimes. A methodical bodyguard quits his job when he’s outsmarted. A military mission is planned to perfection. A potential worker for the Manhattan Project is carefully surveilled by an FBI agent. A killer preys on other killers. Taken together, these stories are a riotous calamity of criminals and crime fighters. Individually, they are expertly crafted, piercing tales that hit hard enough to leave a mark.

These 20 intriguing, thrilling and rapid-fire fictions are sure to please new and longtime fans of Child and to illuminate a side of the author’s work unknown to Reacher devotees. Featuring a colorful new introduction from the author, the collection stands as the first book written entirely by Child in three years.

Audiobook available, read by Edoardo Ballerini