FOX FIVE RELOADED: Charlie Fox. In short bites. With sharp teeth.
Meet Charlie Fox—ex-Special Forces soldier turned self-defence expert and bodyguard—protagonist of Zoë Sharp’s award-winning, highly acclaimed crime thriller series.
(The first five stories in this collection were published in the original Charlie Fox short story collection, Fox Five).
1. A Bridge Too Far
In this short story, we meet Charlie Fox before she’s become a professional in the world of close protection. When she agrees to hang out with the local Dangerous Sports Club, she has no idea how soon it will live up to its name.
2. Postcards From Another Country
The rich are another country.
They do things differently there.
Charlie Fox is tasked with guarding the patriarch of the ultra-rich Dempsey family against attempted assassination—no matter where the danger lies.
3. Served Cold
She’s waited for the perfect moment to exact her revenge…
A finalist for the CWA Short Story Dagger, Served Cold puts another tough woman centre stage—the mysterious Layla, with betrayal in her past and murder in her heart.
4. Off Duty
Trouble has a way finding her, even when she’s Off Duty
This story has Charlie Fox taking time away from the high-risk world of close protection after injury. She still finds trouble, even in an out-of-season health spa in the Catskill Mountains.
5. Truth And Lies
To uphold the truth, first you have to know what it is.
Long by short story standards, Truth And Lies puts all Charlie Fox’s close-protection skills and ingenuity to the test as she has to single-handedly extract a news team from a rapidly escalating war zone.
And now, for Fox Five Reloaded, there are another FOUR Charlie Fox stories included.
6. Across The Broken Line
Working out who to save can be harder than saving them.
In this story, we follow Charlie Fox through a fragmented timescale of cross and double-cross as she fights to keep her principal alive—whoever that might turn out to be.
7. Kill Me Again Slowly
Taking on the bad guys is hard enough for Charlie Fox in the real world, never mind in the alternate reality of Kill Me Again Slowly, where literally anything could happen. (Originally included in the Anthony Award-winning anthology, Murder Under The Oaks.)
8. Risk Assessment
A serial killer’s method of selecting his victims is immaculately conceived and carried out with ruthless precision and seemingly nothing left to chance. But sometimes even the most carefully thought-out plans can go awry.
9. Hounded
And finally, this is my take on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic, Hound Of The Baskervilles. It was originally written for the anthology For The Sake Of The Game, short stories inspired by the Sherlock Holmes’ canon. My version brings Holmes into modern day and into contact with Charlie Fox. But Charlie isn’t on the moors to hunt the infamous hound. She has altogether different prey in mind…