Invisible Blood

by Lee Child

A collection of seventeen brand-new crime stories from bestselling authors Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, Stella Duffy, and more.

Includes Stories by:

Lee Child
Jeffery Deaver
Denise Mina
Stella Duffy
Cathi Unsworth
R.J. Ellory
Jason Starr
Lauren Henderson (writing as Rebecca Chance)
Bill Beverly
A.K. Benedict
Christopher Fowler
Ken Bruen
James Grady
Mary Hoffman
Lavie Tidhar
John Harvey
Johana Gustawsson

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Short Stories, Anthologies, Thriller, Fiction, Noir

307 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 23, 2019

About the author

Lee Child was born October 29th, 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 theater 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 installment. The first Jack Reacher movie, based on the novel One Shot and starring Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike, was released in December 2012.

Lee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling 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.

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Mini review: a somewhat uneven collection of short stories edited by the venerable Maxim Jakubowski. Instead of a theme, he gave the authors carte blanche so you get a wide variety of settings, time periods & styles. All they have in common is someone will die. And as with all anthologies, everyone will have their favourites.

Stand outs for me: "Smile", a sort of Reacher story cleverly told from others' POV (Lee Child). #METOO, a darkly funny tale that should make anyone with a personal assistant verrry nervous (Lauren Henderson). "The Washing", a simple yet effective story set in Franco's Spain (Christopher Fowler). "Black Dog", a spooky drama set in rural England during WWII (Cathi Unsworth).

It's a great way to try on a new author & I'll be checking out books from a couple I haven't read before.

[The Tattooed Book Geek (Drew). · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always this review can also be found on my blog The Tattooed Book Geek: https://thetattooedbookgeek.wordpress...

Invisible Blood is a collection of seventeen different short stories told by seventeen different authors featuring a variety of themes, styles and time periods. The author’s were given carte blanche, free reign, no caveats by the editor of the collection to write about whatever they wanted as long as their story fitted into the thriller genre.

Some of the stories in Invisible Blood aren’t quite on the same level as the others but there was no story that I actively disliked. Of course, I had my favourites and some that I wasn’t as keen on but there’s no blank, dud or misfire amongst the selection of little baby thrillers that are included in the collection. I admit that some of them don’t hit the target dead centre, I didn’t connect with them as much and they lacked the impact of the other includes stories. The stories are low on page-count and overall high on quality. Even if the story wasn’t one of my favourites I applaud the creativity and talent of all the included authors, their storytelling abilities (some stories are more nuanced and subtle while others are more dramatic) and the diversity of the whole collection.

The stories that at I really liked in the collection are All the Signs and Wonders by Denise Mina, The Washing by Christopher Fowler and Fallen Woman by Mary Hoffman.

And,

I would say that the collection is worth buying purely for the opportunity to read Blood Lines by Stella Duffy, Black Dog by Cathi Unsworth, The Bell by Lavie Tidhar, Borrowed Time by R. J. Ellory, In the Belly of the Beast by Johana Gustawsson and Connecting the Dots by Jeffery Deaver as all are exceptional.

I think that Jakubowski has done a stellar job collating and editing the collection of short stories included in Invisible Blood. He has got together a fine set of talented authors with each of their stories brings something different and something individual to the collection. There’s no overall theme meaning that there is likely to be something for everyone included and this makes for a collection of darkly entertaining little gems. An assorted, eclectic and varied mix of stories and little nuggets of glorious thriller goodness.

Invisible Blood is like a bag of pick-and-mix brimming with tasty treats and full of deliciously dark delights.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a intereting collection of crime and mystery short stories but I feel like a lot of them are quite forgettable.

Here's a run down of what I gave each story and its trigger warnings:

3 TW domestic violence
2
3 TW: psychosis
3
4 TW: discussions of suicide
2 TW: suicide
2 TW: rape
2
4 (OCD used incorrectly)
3
2
1
2 TW: suicide
2
3 TW: graphic descriptions of abortion
5 TW: suicide
2
3

Average rating was 2.7 (rounded up to 3)

My favourite was in advance of death, I wish it was longer! My least favourite was Virginia racer.

A lot of these stories were just really average and forgettable. I would really struggle to remember what happened in most of these stories if I'm honest.

Overall, as with all short story collections, there is going to some you love, some you hate and some you just don't care for and for me, this anthology consisted of mainly stories which I could not care for which is a shame.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a truly diverse collection of 17 crime stories, the subjects range from foreign assassination plots to rural bank robberies. Lee Child’s story is an unusual perspective of Jack Reacher, Jason Starr is in good form with his tongue-in-cheek dating revenge story and Ken Bruen counters with a much darker revenge tale of his own. Lauren Henderson’s shrewd “personal assistant” plays the long game and triumphs over a particularly sleazy boss. Bill Beverly’s engaging narrator in his country noir story unwittingly stumbles into a life of crime. This is a solid book for those who enjoy the genre and is a nice mix of well known and lesser known authors.

[Zora · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to do mystery short, and maintain any sort of suspense, and this book is about average in how people manage the challenge. I picked it off my library shelf because it was the only thing they had written by Cathi Unsworth and hers was probably the best story in the collection, so I'll be trying her novels. (so mission accomplished, in that sense.) Second favorite was #metoo, Lauren Henderson's tale about a PA to a Harvey Weinstein-like character who ... well, I won't spoil it for you, but its interesting in its amorality and perhaps more detailed than you might want it to be.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars not quite solid enough to round up to 4 nut decent enough to rate 7/10

[Elite Group · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of 17 short stories

This is my first venture into short story reading in around 40 years of reading crime/thrillers. I am grateful to Breakaway Reviewers for sending me this book, as I didn't know how I would fare. However, I did enjoy reading each story, they all had mainly good points but some more bad points than others.

There were four authors included that are on my long list of must-read authors, and I read their stories first - Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Denise Mina and John Harvey. They were all enjoyable but were eclipsed, in my opinion anyway, by stories from Mary Hoffman and James Grady.

All the stories kept my attention, although one or two appeared to be a bit rushed. All combined are definitely worth four, maybe four and a half stars. The themes range across different countries, styles and cultures and include large dollops of love, hate, mental illness, humour and, of course, murder.

I enjoyed being able to read one or two of the stories in half an hour at lunchtime or in a short period between jobs at home! I would suggest that there is something for everyone in this collection, but the whole collection won't totally satisfy everyone.

I found this book an excellent way to be introduced to new authors that I have not read before, and I may well look at getting hold of some of the lesser-known authors' longer books. Some are creepy, some are sad, and others are very dark, and they are all intellectually challenging

Digger95

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

17 short stories. All were 3.5-4 stars for me.

[Chrys Minter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved

I absolutely loved this book. So many new authors I was introduced to that I need to check out. I love anthologies and all the authors had great stories.

[Delcene Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do love a big book so I’m not surprised that a book of short stories (albeit good crime stories) would be a tad underwhelming.

In a positive note most of the wee stories were good and I discovered some wonderful authors to track down such as Ken Bruen and Cathi Unsworth.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good anthology of short stories, especially when they're drenched in conspiracy, mystery and blood, Invisible Blood ticked so many, if not all of my boxes - which is amazing due to my fussiness when it comes to short stories. I found that Invisible Blood had a little something for everyone, from thrill with a twist of humour, to complete psychological carnage. Many of them had a quality noir feel to them. Whatever you do, you should get your reading flippers on and dive straight in.

As always with short stories, it doesn't matter how much you love the collection as a whole, there will always be stories that you enjoyed more than others. The few that completely stood out for me included:
All the Signs and Wonders by Denise Mina - we are drawn into the psyche of Claire, we are given an insight to her life both past and present - we become aware pretty damn quickly that Claire is not stable, which adds to the psychological explosions that you'll experience throughout the read. I felt that Claire was the personification of many unresolved issues, such as anger, grief and the loss of a number of things. Denise, in a short number of pages has given dark explanations into all aspects of Claire's life - everything is covered with cracking impact!
The Washing by Christopher Fowler - I do love a story of housewife turn detective, especially when it has dash of nosey neighbour gossip, strong female point of view and a mystery that is solved one piece at a time with the reader on the same wavelength. Linda has moved to Spain with her partner, to what feels like a highly close knit misogynistic area, with her husband away for work and not knowing many of the neighbours, Linda becomes a people watcher. Very Desperate Housewives with a draw dropping edge.
Blood Lines by Stella Duffy - I absolutely loved this one because it was shiveringly eerie and one of the more psychologically warping reads in the pack. The essence of Blood Lines was contorted to say the least, with a dash of Macbeth feels thrown in, as well as being bloody (pardon the pun) unexpected, yet cleverly executed.
Fallen Woman by Mary Hoffman - Crime, conspiracy and lurking deathly threats, uh yes please! Fallen Woman had the feel of old school gangster crime that was super refreshing from the psychological leading stories but just as impactful. Again with a first person narrative, you only have the access to one side of the story which leaves you nail chewing trying to find the missing dots.... get your read string and cork board out folks! Lets play detective!

Overall, this collection is one that you should 100% add to your to read list, every single one of them is shocking and brilliant, I have also been introduced to a variety of authors whose work I have yet to explore, such as Lee Child and John Harvey. I know, I'm a self proclaimed thriller addict, I dissapointed myself at times! Invisible Blood has opened my eyes to the incredibly talented writers out there, who apparently have darkly warped imaginations! If you're looking for a taut, sinister and suspense filled read this summer, grab a copy of Invisible Blood, it'll cater for all your twisted desires!

[Terri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good stories, some not-so-good, and some that I could not make any sense of...

[Linda Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seventeen stories and biographies from well known crime writers.

I’ll be honest. I haven’t read full length works by many of the authors featured in Invisible Blood which is why I wanted to read this book, but it means I don’t know how representative they are of their writing. To take that honesty a stage further, not all of the stories appealed to my reader taste and one or two felt slightly contrived and rushed as if they had been written too quickly for the volume.

That said, I found Invisible Blood an interesting and entertaining read. I wasn’t expecting the oblique approaches to crime that some of the authors took and I had anticipated a more visceral picture because of the book’s cover and the dripping blood motif at the start of every story. That’s by no means a criticism as I liked those less graphic tales most of all. In particular I enjoyed Borrowed Time by R’J’ Ellory because the ‘invisibility’ of the volume’s title has particular resonance and poignancy in this story. I loved the setting of this one too although you’ll need to read it yourself to see if you can guess why!

The themes of Invisible Blood range across countries and societies; with love, revenge, mental illness, suicide and abuse as well as expected murder all woven into them so that they often surprised me and made me think at the same time as entertaining me. My favourite in the collection was Johana Gustawsson’s In The Belly Of The Beast because she looks at relationships not just with others, but with our inner selves so eloquently too, so that I understood Marta and Anna only too well. This was the story I felt could easily become a full length novel because of the detail and depth it contains. I was very moved by In The Belly Of The Beast.

Invisible Blood is what I might call a Goldilocks book. For some it will be too violent, for others not violent enough and for the rest, just right. I think there is something within its pages for all readers, and especially those who don’t often read crime fiction as it is an effective way to discover the different styles of the writers with a view to reading their longer work. I thoroughly enjoyed the ability to read an entire narrative in a few minutes and this volume is a Godsend for those readers who are short on time, but who need high quality writing nonetheless. With an eclectic selection, Invisible Blood is definitely worth dipping in to.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, 2.5 stars, because this thing has some junk I would have written in my more melodramatic teens: "Borrowed Time," a turgid, overwritten yawn by R. J. Ellory; "In Advance of Death" (A. K. Benedict), which is laughably dramatic and unbelievable. "The Lifeguard" (James Grady) seems to have been written by someone who's never actually heard another human being speak, because people who aren't college professors don't talk in expositionary paragraphs. (Retired, but I can still talk for hours on certain subjects, at very reasonable rates.)

Other stories worked, though. Standouts included "#MeToo" (Lauren Henderson); "Blood Lines" (Christopher Fowler), though I'm not sure bleach works the way he wants it to; and "Black Dog" (Cathi Unsworth), which has a nice blend of murder and folklore.

That's the best thing about anthologies: if one piece is crap, you're not trapped there for 250 pages.

[Leonie Hinch · Rating 4 out of 5]

With thanks to Titan Books for my copy of Invisible Blood in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: a collection of 17 short stories in the crime and thriller genre by some of the best known names in crime. Includes short stories from Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, Denise Mina, Christopher Fowler, John Harvey, Cathi Unsworth and many more.

I'm not usually a huge fan of short stories but this collection was really good. I liked all of the stories in the book, some more than others. If I had to pick three favourites that stood out for me they were:
Blood Lines by Stella Duffy
Fallen Woman by Mary Hoffman
#metoo by Lauren Henderson
There is a wide variety of different types of thrillers from across the genre and I honestly really enjoyed them all!

[Richard Goddard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short crime stories serves its purpose of introducing one to authors one does not yet already know. It will speak to a variety of tastes. In terms of the stories themselves it is much more patchy. Lee Child and Jeffrey Deaver are masters of what they do and their stories are good. I found a couple of others that excited me and I will explore those authors’ other works. The remainder did not really inspire me. Most were ‘alright’ I suppose. Some were too long and frankly boring, one I didn’t really understand, with others I just wasn’t interested enough to really care about the characters. However, if you want a wide variety of crime genre stories in one place, then this book might well work for you.

[Jerry B · Rating 3 out of 5]

As conventional with most anthologies of this sort, some of the stories resonated, others absolutely did not. We were particularly disappointed in Lee Child's Jack Reacher tale, a very lackluster, almost pointless third person short outing in which it wasn't even obvious what Jack was doing -- we never did exactly figure it out, nor frankly care that much. The Deaver tale, by contrast, was excellent, reflecting his mastery of the short story medium in which he has several books all by himself that are great fun. One or two of the other authors previously unknown to us were at least interesting, although a couple more meandered their way to nowhere.

Typical. {2.5}

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a solid anthology, some stories I liked a lot, others left me flat. Highlights for me were the lyrical Borrowed Time by R.J. Ellory, The Washing - a ‘Rear Window’ that works almost as well as the original - by Christopher Fowler, the chilling Lifeguard by James Grady, and the perfectly timed Ghost of Williamsburg by Jason Starr. I was surprised to discover I enjoyed ‘Connecting the Dots’ by Jeffrey Deaver as his writing has bored me of late. And a twist of Jack Reacher in ‘Smile’ by Lee Child was fun to read.

[Matt Lorenzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Reached short story... and more!

I checked this book out mainly for Lee Child's Reacher short story, but did read all the others, too. Classic Reacher for any fan looking to read the full lot. The rest of the stories... I'd estimate about 75-80% were quite entertaining. A few of those really stood out. The remaining felt like first tries for a Freshman in college who forced in certain character types just to be included, thinking it gave them a shoe in...which likely proved correct, but they hurt the collection as a whole.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invisible Blood is a collection of short stories by a number of mystery and suspense writers. It gives the reader the opportunity to become acquainted with the styles of a number of authors, some of which one is familiar and others new to them. I liked the variety, the fact that a story can be read ina short sitting and the opportunity to look for future novels by authors new to me.

[Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not Worth the Time or Investment

With the exception of Lee Child's excellent story, this was a collection of obtuse, obvious and/or poorly crafted efforts at mystery fiction that should be consigned to the "free" or self-published domains. I regret making the investment. It was just not good value for dollar.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good way to sample several mystery writers with this collection of short stories. Good book for times when you have some time to read, but can't find the time to read a novel.

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very impressive set of 17 stories exploring what crime stories are capable of from historical, social, horror and noir it’s a great collection

Full review https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

[L.K.Mirza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent compilation. Diverse and interesting.

This was a great collection of different views of the mystery genre. All had something of interest to offer, but short enough to read quickly.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an anthology some of the stories were better than others. Did not care for the Jack Reacher story Smile, by Lee Child. Did like Connecting the Dots, by Jeffery Deaver. And Yesterday’s, by John Harvey didn’t even seem to be a complete story...I wanted to read the rest!

[Jack Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed Bag

Not a bad collection of stories, but not great. As usual, there are a couple of gems. I particularly liked the Jeffrey Deaver entry, as the twist ending had a second twist even better than the first.

[Mike Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A compilation of short stories from a variety of mystery writers. I picked up this book mainly because there was a Jack Reacher story. It wasn’t a great short story. Reacher in a London airport, not very realistic. I tried a couple of the other stories, but they didn’t do much for me either.

[Casey Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. A collection of short stories by some renowned thriller writers, but these are just not good, for the most part. The story that drew me to the collection, a Lee Child Jack Reacher story, is also just not great. Don't waste your time on this one.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was read in between other stories, as an anthology of seventeen tales, it lends itself to one or two reads here and there.
A mixture of talent, styles, and varying levels of intrigue and thrill.
Enjoyable and a nice distraction from other commitments.

[John Mccormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of seventeen short stories a few by Author's I have previously read, but the majority I have never heard of. An excellent set of murder mysteries absorbing clever intelligent throughout.
Completely recommended.