What if the world’s greatest contemporary mystery writers got together and decided to write a serial thriller novella? What if it turned into two? Are you getting excited yet? Most rabid readers would be.

Jeffery Deaver, author of many bestsellers including the Lincoln Rhyme series, is the mastermind behind this project. He belongs to a group of thriller writers who call themselves International Thriller Writers. Founded in 2004, ITW represents over 100 New York Times bestselling authors who among them have over two billion books in print.

The premise: Deaver would write the opening chapter then pass the story off to the next writer. These writers included such well-known authors as Lee Child, Gayle Lynds, Linda Barnes, John Ramsey Miller, S.J. Rozan, and many more. At the closing of the story, Deaver steps back in and concludes this brilliant endeavor.

The storyline revolves around a mysterious organization known as The Volunteers. Their purpose is to hunt down war criminals and stop new crimes from occurring. Their first story, “The Chopin Manuscript,” involves a handwritten score by Chopin that soon has the owner and his pregnant daughter in horrible danger, the only people he trusts to help are the group that he heads - the mysterious Volunteers.

The second story, “The Copper Bracelet,” uses the same characters. The Volunteers are trying to stop the sabotage of a major construction project by an assassin wearing the plans engraved in a mysterious copper bracelet.

This is a wonderful concept and quite interesting and entertaining to read. The authors do a wonderful job passing the chapters from one to the other and keeping the story flowing. I tried at times to pick up each separate style, but in most cases the story flows seamlessly.