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Match Up

Match Up 1

What Happens When Your Favourite Thriller Characters Join Forces

by Val McDermidSandra Brown C. J. Box and others
Paperback
Publication Date: 13/06/2017
4/5 Rating 1 Review

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Edited by Lee Child, Match Up pairs up twenty-two of your favourite crime writers and their iconic characters in this unique short-story collection.

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ...

Lee Child's Jack Reacher will team up with Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan to unmask a cunning killer. Val McDermid's Tony Hill and Carol Jordan work with Peter James's Roy Grace on a very unusual murder case.

These are just some of the never-before-seen pairings in Match Up - a brand new collaboration between the world's famous crime writers. Edited be international bestseller Lee Child, this exclusive page-turning anthology promises the same thrills and chills brought to you by the previous collection, Face Off. Read on for the full list of author and character pairings:

Diana Gabaldon's Claire Randall Fraser + Steve Berry's Cotton Malone
Lisa Scottoline's Bennie Rosato + Nelson DeMille's John Corey
Sandra Brown's Lee Coburn + C.J. Box's Joe Pickett
Kathy Reichs's Temperance Brennan + Lee Child's Jack Reacher
Val McDermid's Tony Hill + Peter James's Roy Grace
Charlaine Harris's Harper Connelly + Andrew Gross's Ty Hauck
Gayle Lynds's Liz Sansborough + David Morrell's Rambo
Karin Slaughter's Jeffrey Tolliver + Michael Koryta's Lincoln Perry
Lara Adrian's Lucan Thorne + Christopher Rice
J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds + Eric Van Lustbader's Bravo Shaw
Lisa Jackson's Regan Pescoli + John Sandford's Lucas Davenport

ISBN:
9780751569025
9780751569025
Category:
Anthologies (non-poetry)
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
13-06-2017
Language:
English
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group Limited
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
400
Dimensions (mm):
233x167x35mm
Weight:
0.3kg
Val McDermid

Val McDermid is a No. 1 bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold over eleven million copies.

She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award.

She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2010.

In 2011 she received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award. She writes full time and divides her time between Cheshire and Edinburgh.

Sandra Brown

Sandra Brown is the author of sixty New York Times bestsellers, including Rainwater (2010), Tough Customer (2010), Smash Cut (2009), Smoke Screen (2008), Play Dirty (2007), Ricochet (2006), Chill Factor (2005), White Hot (2004), Hello, Darkeness (2003), The Crush (2002), Envy (2001), The Switch (2000), The Alibi (1999), Unspeakable (1998) and Fat Tuesday (1997), all of which have jumped onto the Times bestseller list in the number one to five spot.

Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Her work has been translated into thirty-three languages.

A lifelong Texan, Sandra Brown was born in Waco, grew up in Fort Worth and attended Texas Christian University, majoring in English. Before embarking on her writing career, she worked as a model at the Dallas Apparel Mart, and in television, including weathercasting for WFAA-TV in Dallas, and feature reporting on the nationally syndicated program PM Magazine.

She is much in demand as a speaker and guest television hostess. Her episode on truTV's Murder by the Book premiered the series in 2008 and in 2010 she was one of the launch authors for Investigation Discovery's new series, Hardcover Mysteries.

In 2009 Brown detoured from her thrillers to write Rainwater, a much acclaimed, powerfully moving story about honor and sacrifice during the Great Depression.

Brown recently was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas Christian University. She was named Thriller Master for 2008, the top award given by the International Thriller Writer's Association. Other awards and commendations include the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature and the Romance Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award.

C. J. Box

C.J. Box is the winner of the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award, and is an Edgar Award and L.A. Times Book Prize finalist. He lives in Wyoming.

Peter James

Peter James is one of the UK's most treasured crime and thriller novelists. His Roy Grace detective novels have sold over one and a half million in the UK alone and five million worldwide in total. The series is now translated into 33 languages. He has developed a close working relationship with the Sussex Police over many years, spending an average of one day a week with them and his writing reveals a unique insight into the reality of modern day police work.

He has also carried out extensive research with police in Moscow, Munich, Paris, Melbourne, Sweden, New York and Romania, as well as attending international police conferences to ensure he is at the cutting edge of investigative police work. Peter, an established film producer and script writer, has produced numerous films, including The Merchant Of Venice, starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes.

A TV adaptation of the Roy Grace series is currently in development, with Peter overseeing all aspects, including the scriptwriting. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Brighton in recognition of his services to literature and the community.

Peter is now a member of the Sussex Police Rape Prevention Team and writing and producing a video for them for schools and YouTube that will warn teenage girls of the potential date rape situations they could find themselves in. He did a lot of research with Lifecentre - for further information on Lifecentre visit their website at www.lifecentre.uk.com

Born and brought up in Brighton, Peter divides his time between his homes in Notting Hill, London and on the South Downs near Lewes in Sussex.

Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon is the author of the international bestselling Outlander novels and Lord John Grey series.

She says that the Outlander series started by accident: 'I decided to write a novel for practice in order to learn what it took to write a novel, and to decide whether I really wanted to do it for real.

I did and here we all are trying to decide what to call books that nobody can describe, but that fortunately most people seem to enjoy.' And enjoy them they do - in their millions, all over the world.

Published in 42 countries and 38 languages, in 2014 the Outlander novels were made into an acclaimed TV series starring Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser and Caitriona Balfe as Claire.

Seasons three and four are currently in production. Diana lives with her husband and dogs in Scottsdale, Arizona, and is currently at work on her ninth Outlander novel.

Steve Berry

Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of the Cotton Malone series. His books have been translated into 40 languages with 17,000,000 copies in 51 countries.

Steve was born and raised in Georgia, graduating from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years.

He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers - a group of more than 2,600 thriller writers from around the world - and served for three years as its co-president.

Andrew Gross

Before writing his own bestselling thrillers, Andrew Gross co-authored five novels with James Patterson.

His first novel The Blue Zone was an instant international bestseller.

He currently lives in New York with his wife, Lynn and their three children.

Kathy Reichs

From teaching FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains, to separating and identifying commingled body parts in her Montreal lab, as one of only seventy-seven forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Dr Kathy Reichs has brought her own dramatic work experience to her mesmerising forensic thrillers.

For years she consulted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and continues to do so for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec. Kathy Reichs has travelled to Rwanda to testify at the UN Tribunal on Genocide, and helped exhume a mass grave in Guatemala. As part of her work at JPAC she aided in the identification of war dead from World War II, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Kathy Reichs has served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and is currently a member of the National Police Services Advisory Board in Canada. She is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A native of Chicago, she now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal.

Kathy Reichs's first novel Déjà Dead catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller, a Sunday Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. All eleven of her novels have been international bestsellers. She is also a producer of the chilling hit TV series Bones. She has written seventeen bestsellers featuring Dr Temperance Brennan, the most recent being Bones Never Lie. She has also written four bestsellers featuring Tory Brennan: Virals, Seizure, Code and Exposure.

Nelson DeMille

Nelson Richard DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943 to Huron and Antonia (Panzera) DeMille, then moved with his parents to Long Island. He graduated from Elmont Memorial High School, where he played football and ran track.

DeMille spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army where he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69). He saw action in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division and was decorated with the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. After his discharge, DeMille returned to Hofstra University where he received his bachelor's degree in Political Science and History.

He has three children, Lauren, Alexander, and James, and he and his wife reside on Long Island. DeMille's first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978, and is still in print as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of American Mensa, The Authors Guild, and is past president of the Mystery Writers of America.

He is also a member of International Thriller Writers and was chosen as ThrillerMaster of the Year 2015. He holds three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University, Doctor of Literature from Long Island University, and Doctor of Humane Letters from Dowling College.

Lee Child

Lee Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended.

He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theatre he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV's "golden age." During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker.

But he was fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars' worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series. Killing Floor was an immediate success and launched the series which has grown in sales and impact with every new instalment.

Lee has three homes - an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever air-plane cabin he happens to be in while travelling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born.

Lee spends his spare time reading, listening to music, and watching the Yankees, Aston Villa, or Marseilles soccer. He is married with a grown-up daughter. He is tall and slim, despite an appalling diet and a refusal to exercise.

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1 Review

Match Up is an anthology of eleven short stories written by twenty-two authors. Lee Child edited, wrote the forward and also contributed to one of the stories. All the authors are published (no novices here) and most are well-known. But not all are experienced in writing short stories, or in collaborating with other authors. Each story is prefaced by some commentary about how the collaboration worked, and there is an author biography for each one at the end.

It’s an interesting concept, to match up eleven male/female authors and get them to create a story that brings together characters for whom they are each well known. Thus we have Ty Hauck investigating with Harper Connelly in a story which, sadly, sees Tolliver Lang take a back seat. Jeffrey Tolliver teams up with Joe Pritchard and Lincoln Perry, Tempe Brennan gets a much-needed hand from Jack Reacher, Cotton Malone finds himself in 18th Century Scotland meeting a certain Jamie Fraser, and so on. Some are straight up crime fiction, but there are a few with paranormal elements, and there’s plenty of humour.

For die-hard fans of the authors featured, this will be a little extra dose of their favourite characters; for readers unfamiliar with the authors, this provides a taste of the author’s work, maybe giving them an idea of what the fuss is about. They are all short stories, so not much time investment is needed, most are excellent and some even add a little to the character’s back story. Quite enjoyable.

Contains Spoilers No
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