2011 thriller: five short stories about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox,
former soldier and current private bodyguard.
This is a very slight book, which gives the air of being intended
primarily as promotional material. The stories are short (only the
last breaks ten thousand words), all but the last have been previously
published either in multi-author anthologies or as bonus material in
the novels, and nearly a quarter of the book consists of filler about
the author and the history of the character, and extracts from the
novels – none of which will be new to the reader who's read the
novels.
A Bridge Too Far, anthologised in Green for Danger: Crimes in the
Country, is the only story here dealing with the "pre-America"
Charlie Fox. It's quite raw, characters aren't as differentiated as
they might be, and the predictable reverse is predictable, but Sharp's
energy still comes through.
Postcards From Another Country was bonus back matter for the
paperback edition of First Drop, and sets up some background to
Fifth Victim, though that wasn't the intention. (If you've already
read Fifth Victim it's rather de-fanged.) It's very minimal: an
incident happens, it's done, and the story ends.
Served Cold, anthologised in A Hell of a Woman, moves away from
Charlie's first-person view and puts us in the viewpoint, though not
quite inside the head, of someone planning violent revenge. It's a
good enough plan for good enough reasons, but Charlie is in its way.
Off Duty, intended as bonus back matter for Second Shot but used
instead in Criminal Tendencies – Great Crime Stories From Great Crime
Writers, is another very short piece, a coda of sorts to the events
of that book: Charlie visits a spa in the Catskills to recuperate
after major injury, and gets into minor trouble. As with the other
stories here, the tension isn't about whether she will physically win
any confrontations that happen: she will. It's about whether she will
work out what's going on in time to stop other people from coming to a
bad end.
Truth And Lies is the only story written specifically for this
anthology, and it's rather more substantial than the others here.
Charlie goes into a hellhole of civil war (carefully not located
anywhere specific in the world) to pull out a reporter and cameraman.
Things go bad, people get hurt and killed, and nobody ends up in a
good place. This is solid stuff, with a fine sense of immediacy, and
even the obligatory "surprising" sting in the tail doesn't fall flat.
At this length, there's no time for the long plodding episodes of
self-doubt to which Charlie is unfortunately prone, but the first and
the last stories are definitely the best here. This collection
certainly isn't worth paying standard book prices for, but if you're
interested in the series and wondering what it's all about, it's a
decent introduction to the character and her world.
Followed by Die Easy.
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