Review: Interesting but not memorable short stories
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 16, 2013
This is a collection of short stories by popular UK author Stephen Leather which are probably free because they contain a promo for his upcoming next book, "True Colours", which will be #10 in the long running Spider Shepherd series. Two of the short stories feature Spider Shepherd in action, with all his normal thriller action encapsulated in a few chapters. The third story is a bit more macabre when a couple of burglars bite off more than they can chew when the try to con an 80+ year old man with a sinister history.There is a lot of competition out there for established published thriller writers, especially from self-published authors who promote their books by making them free every few months. Some established authors are promoting their new books before release with a few free chapters of the next book, others are adding preview parts to new releases of older books at discounted prices and some are following in Leather's footsteps and publishing free or nearly free short stories that include their previews. I don't object to any of these as long as the promotional aspect is clearly stated.All in all these short stories passed an hour or so of my time but I wasn't left with any indelible memories. Did it make me want to pre-order the next book in the series? I do like the Spider Shepherd series but I still have a number of the earlier ones to catch up on before reading the latest one.