Crime Fiction

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran—and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

From the world's number one thriller writer, twenty pulse-pounding short stories are collected for the first time in one edition, complete with an introduction from the author. Here are twenty meticulously plotted, intimate portraits of humanity at its best and worst, featuring assassins, CIA agents, gangsters, and more. A drug-dealing hit man unburdens his fears to a stranger. An overlooked rookie cop is assigned to the department’s file room. A ruthless killer only kills bad guys. A methodical bodyguard quits his job when he’s outsmarted. A military mission is planned to perfection… Each story is entirely distinct. And with their economical prose and unexpected twists, each could only have been written by the creator of Jack Reacher. The stories included in this collection The Bodyguard \ The Greatest Trick of All \ Ten Keys \ Safe Enough \ Natural in Every Way \ The .50 Solution \ Publica Transportation \ Me and Mr. Rafferty \ Section 7 (a) (Operational) \ Addicted to Sweetness \ The Bone-Headed League \ I Heard a Romantic Story \ My First Drug Trial \ Wet with Rain \ The Truth About What Happened \ Pierre, Lucien & Me \ New Blank Document \ Shorty and the Briefcase \ Dying for a Cigarette \* The Snake-Eater by the Numbers