FaceOff is a neat concept book. It gathers together a number of authors and has them collaborate, in pairs, to create a short story involving their main characters.
I was really excited to read it to see Harry Bosch and Patrick Kenzie work together (Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, respectively), and also Paul Madriani and Alex Cooper (Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein) and Jack Reacher with Nick Heller (Lee Child and Joseph Finder). Basically, the collection seemed to assemble quite a number of authors I enjoy reading, and would have short stories featuring their characters.
From a fan service standpoint, I'd say the collection was a success. The reader gets to see their favourite characters interact with each other and work together on a brief case. I guess what I was hoping for however, was a little more of Harry Bosch's impressions of Patrick Kenzie and vice versa, and to see them use their strengths to work together. The trouble with that, is it probably needs more room than is available in a 20 page short story. So the collection worked from a tasting menu perspective. You got to see a glimpse, it is probably what you were looking for, but not fully satisfying.
For myself, I am interested enough in a couple of the authors featured to pick up books featuring their characters (Jeffrey Deaver and Linwood Barclay), but it's difficult even to tell whose writing style you're getting in the course of the short story. So I'm not sure I could recommend this as a way of getting into new authors, but at most for giving a brief sense of the characters involved. Sometimes that's enough I suppose, but I think FaceOff is ultimately targeted at people who are already fans of the authors and characters.
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