A Non-Reacher Twist and Double-Twist
Review of the Amazon First Reads Kindle eBook edition (January 1, 2025), released in advance of the official publication by Amazon Original Stories in eBook format & by Audible Originals in audio format (February 1, 2025).

Tremendous work. Such subtle understanding. Not many scholars have grasped Kindansky as thoroughly as you. Perhaps none at all.

Lee Child has retired* from writing Reacher novels, but that doesn't mean he has completely retired from writing. Eleven Numbers is a solid espionage short story which may start off as somewhat cliched (average man is swept up into a mysterious conspiracy) but which contains a shocking twist and then a double twist payoff before it ends.

Mathematician Nathan Tyler is suddenly brought into the White House and learns about a secret algorithm which protects Russia's nuclear arsenal. The code to unlocking it is known only by the Russian mathematician who invented it. Will Tyler agree to travel to Russia for a mathematics conference and somehow meet that mathematician and somehow obtain that code? Tyler agrees, but what happens next is completely unexpected.

This was a welcome return by Lee Child and one wonders whether he might start writing espionage thrillers in the future, or whether he will stick to the occasional short form outing.

Footnote
* It was publicly revealed in publicity interviews for The Secret (Reacher #28 -2023) that after 4 co-written novels during the handover between Lee and Andrew Child (actually the pennames of brothers James and Andrew Grant), that the next 4 novels were contracted by the publisher to Andrew Child alone. For marketing and cataloging purposes, the books are still filed under "Lee Child." The most recent book In Too Deep (Reacher #29 - 2024) was then an Andrew Child solo effort. I reviewed it as A One-Handed Reacher.

Trivia and Links
There is no such thing as a special series of prime numbers called the Kindansky numbers. I would guess that Lee Child invented the name by switching the two vowels in the artist Kandinsky's name. But also see the link to the discussion below.

A discussion thread points out the possible typo in the so-called Kindansky numbers which you can read here.

Amazon Prime First Reads advance reading copies (ARCs) are available to Amazon Prime subscribers. They offer advance reads of books in Kindle eBook format one month before the date of official release. The current month's selection is available here (Link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region).

You can watch for current and past Amazon Original Stories which are usually paired with their Audible Original narrations at an Amazon page here (link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region). ( )