Perry, Thomas Books

Runner (Jane Whitefield)

Thomas Perry

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Editorial Review:

Jane Whitefield—New York Times best-selling writer
Thomas Perry's most popular character—returns from
retirement to the world of the runner, guiding fugitives
out of danger.
After a nine-year absence, the fiercely resourceful Native
American guide JaneWhitefield is back, in the latest
superb thriller by award-winning author Thomas Perry.
For more than a decade, Jane pursued her unusual
profession: "I'm a guide . . . I show people how to go from
places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places
where nobody is."Then she promised her husband she
would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet
life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst,
New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a
hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the
cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been
tracked across the country by a team of hired hunters.That
night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she's made to
her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more
victim into a runner. And her quest for safety sets in motion
a mission that will be a rescue operation—or a chance for
revenge.
Runner is Thomas Perry at the top of his form.

Metzger's Dog: A Novel

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The much-loved comic thriller by the author of the Edgar Award–winning The Butcher’s Boy is now, by popular demand, back in print, featuring a new Introduction by bestselling author Carl Hiaasen.

When Leroy “Chinese” Gordon breaks into a professor’s lab at the University of Los Angeles, he’s after some pharmaceutical cocaine, worth plenty of money. Instead, he finds the papers the professor has compiled for the CIA, which include a blueprint for throwing a large city into chaos. But how is the CIA to be persuaded to pay a suitable ransom, unless of course someone actually uses the plan to throw a large city into chaos—Los Angeles, for instance? Assigned to cope with the crisis and restore the peace, veteran agent Ben Porterfield steps onto the scene to remind us that the CIA’s middle name is, after all, Intelligence. Enlivening the mix are Gordon’s beautiful girlfriend, Margaret, his temperamental cat, Dr. Henry Metzger, and Metzger’s friend, an enormous half-wild dog with huge teeth.

Fidelity

Thomas Perry

Amazon Price: $16.50 List Price: $25.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harcourt Amazon Marketplace: 89 new & used starting at $2.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Calling this book "Pulp" is an undeserved compliment 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Way, way too much narrative -- and boring narrative -- and too little dialogue -- and boring dialogue at that. It would seem to me that Mr. Perry is way way over-hyped. This is the last Perry book I'll read, and I'm probably not qualified to write this review, as it took me about 30 minutes to read it. I started skimming because I was mildly -- very very mildly -- interested in the plot ... and kept skimming faster and faster. Basically, a waste of my time. Very amateur-ish. I'd give it a "No Star" if that rating were available.

Editorial Review:

When Phil Kramer is shot dead on a deserted suburban street in the middle of the night, his wife, Emily, is left with an emptied bank account and a lot of questions. How could Phil leave her penniless? What was he going to do with the money? And, most of all, who was he if he wasn’t the man she thought she married?

Jerry Hobart has some questions of his own. It’s none of his business why he was hired to kill Phil Kramer. But now that he’s been ordered to take out Kramer’s widow, he figures there’s a bigger secret at work—and maybe a bigger payoff.

As they race to find the secret that Phil Kramer so masterfully hid, both Hobart and Emily must question where their true loyalties lie and how much they owe those who have been unfaithful to them. In Fidelity, Thomas Perry delivers another riveting thriller.

The Butcher's Boy

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perry's first, but one of many entertaining reads by him 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

An early 80s Edgar Award winner, this wonderful adventure pits Department of Justice prodigy Elizabeth Waring against The Butcher's Boy, the professional assassin who remains nameless throughout the book. He's good at his job. Two early murders, one of an influential U.S. Senator, put the Department of Justice and Elizabeth and her co-workers, sometimes in uneasy alliance with the FBI and local law enforcement, on the trail of an unknown murderer, maybe two since they aren't sure if the homicides are related or not. The factor tying them together turns out to be Fieldstone Growth Enterprises, ostensibly an investment company. Things end up going in unpredictable directions for both main characters, many caused by he role of a mafia-like organization that touches on all of this business and the lives of the murderer and Elizabeth. There are plenty of murders in the book, some first hand, some only discussed, but only peripherally gory in most cases. I found it disconcertingly easy to like the assassin, not the first bad guy of Perry's I liked (see Gordon in Metzger's Dog). I've read half a dozen or more of Perry's books. This is his first, and it's interesting to see in character Maureen a foreshadow of Jane Whitefield (try Vanishing Act), a character I enjoyed immensely in her several novels. This is one more sample of why I find Perry to be a most reliable story teller, entertaining and consistently good.

Editorial Review:

The Edgar Award–winning novel by the “master of nail-biting suspense”(Los Angeles Times)

Thomas Perry exploded onto the literary scene with The Butcher’s Boy. Back in print by popular demand, this spectacular debut, from a writer of “infernal ingenuity” (The New York Times Book Review), includes a new Introduction by bestselling author Michael Connelly.

Murder has always been easy for the Butcher’s Boy—it’s what he was raised to do. But when he kills the senior senator from Colorado and arrives in Las Vegas to pick up his fee, he learns that he has become a liability to his shadowy employers. His actions attract the attention of police specialists who watch the world of organized crime, but though everyone knows that something big is going on, only Elizabeth Waring, a bright young analyst in the Justice Department, works her way closer to the truth, and to the frightening man behind it.

Silence (Otto Penzler Book)

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Typical Cat and Mouse, Along With a Disappearing Act 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Thomas Perry has been around for quite some time. So when the opportunity present itself to read him, I jumped all over it. "Silence" is the name of this cat and mouse thriller. Hidden identity is the name of the game, with a slight twist to give it some flavor. Thomas Perry writes well, sometimes leaving the reader guessing, sometimes making it quite obvious. But ultimately he hooks his reader within the first paragraph.

This story begins after a hard day's night, and trouble when you get home. Just ask Wendy Harper. And as a result of this, she has disappeared, and her location is unknown. And as a result of her being so well unknown, somebody might take the fall for her disappearance. But there is one man who might be able to track her down, and that's the man who taught her what she knows today. His name is Jack Till, and he's in a race with Paul and Sylvie Turner, trained assassins who can dance, to find Wendy Harper first. Get an innocent man off the hook, and get on with life. Sounds simple, right?

Thomas Perry makes it sound pretty easy. But there is humanity woven within each page, so even with the killers nipping at the heels, you sometimes feel sorry for them! And the story is told with guts, as well as told in masterful fashion. And even though the end is to die for, you can't help but feel like a punk if you walk away satisfied. That's how I felt in the end. But I also felt like I'd gotten my money's worth. And that's saying a great deal for a lot of supposed "BESTSELLING AUTHORS" these days. Thomas Perry has earned his check!

Editorial Review:

Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But now her ex-boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is being framed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, and Till must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and Sylvie Turner do.

The Turners are merely hired to do a job, though, and prefer to remain anonymous. When they find that a middleman has let the true employer know their identities, finishing the job is no longer enough. Their fee just went up.

Full of masterful plotting and unnerving psychological insight, Silence is a mesmerizing thrill ride.

The Face-Changers (Jane Whitefield Novels)

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Thrilling 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I didn't think it possible, but with each new Jane Whitefield book, Thomas Perry creates an even more frightening and exciting scenario than in the previous book. The characters are always fleshed out and believable. Mr. Perry is always worth the time you spend reading his works.

Editorial Review:

Jane Whitefield, Thomas Perry's Native American "guide," has recently married Dr. Carey McKinnon and is now retired from helping people disappear from danger. But when her husband's old mentor, a world-famous plastic surgeon wanted by the police for a murder he didn't commit, turns up in Carey's emergency room, Jane steps back into the shadowy world of runners and hunters one more time. In this fourth outing in Edgar-winning Perry's fascinating and innovative series, Jane discovers that someone else is using her name and reputation to take fugitives out of the world, but for very different, and diabolical, purposes. Whitefield's Seneca heritage, plus her unique talents, make her a novel and compelling heroine, and Perry's masterful storytelling makes the most of Whitefield in this suspenseful page-turner. --Jane Adams

Sleeping Dogs

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

He came to England to rest. He calls himself Michael Shaeffer, says he's a retired American businessman. He goes to the races, dates a kinky aristocrat, and sleeps with dozens of weapons. Ten years ago it was different. Then, he was the Butcher's Boy, the highly skilled mob hit man who pulled a slaughter job on some double-crossing clients and started a mob war. Ever since, there's been a price on his head.
Now, after a decade, they've found him. The Butcher's Boy escapes back to the States with more reasons to kill. Until the odds turn terrifyingly against him . . . until the Mafia, the cops, the FBI, and the damn Justice Department want his hide . . . until he's locked into a cross-country odyssey of fear and death that could tear his world to pieces . . .
"Exciting . . . Suspenseful . . . A thriller's job is to make you turn the pages until the story's done and your eyes hurt and the clock says 3 a.m. . . . I wouldn't try to grab this one away from somebody only half-way through. No telling what might happen."
-- Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

Blood Money

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Penzler Pick, March 2000: When Thomas Perry won his Edgar for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America in 1983, anyone who'd read The Butcher's Boy cheered. That remarkable tale of a likable hit man stayed in one's mind long after the last page had been turned. Now with nine more highly original thrillers to his credit, Perry still knows how to keep us enthralled and, even better, surprised.

After several standalone titles, Perry began to produce a series unlike any other, giving us in Jane Whitefield a heroine that I'd have to imagine many of Hollywood's hippest young stars are fighting to play. Introduced in Sleeping Dogs, Jane is a "guide" of a very special kind, a sort of warrior-goddess capable of the most daring feats of cunning and courage who by day pursues a satisfying life off the radar as a suburban surgeon's wife. Her ordinary existence is, in fact, so contented--and her husband so worried for her safety when she's helping mortally threatened men, women, and children--that each time she's approached with a desperate case by a new victim of evil, her first instinct is to say no. But there would be no series if she did, and we would miss her intricately assembled exploits.

Picture the Scarlet Pimpernel looking like the singer Buffy Ste. Marie (Jane's of native American heritage) and equally skilled at disguise and seat-of-the-pants strategy. Isn't that the sort of companion you'd welcome if you were on the run from the Mob with $20 billion (that's with a "b") of their money, its secret whereabouts all stored mnemonically in your head? Maybe you'd rather have the U.S. Marine Corps on your side, but if that's not an option, newcomers to the Jane Whitefield books will quickly learn (and her fans already know) that she can pull it off on her own. A wonderfully entertaining element of these original adventures is that Jane's guiding principle is simplicity. Thus, the reader's vicarious thrills lie in watching the process, the twists and turns of her schemes and, above all, her amazing capacity for forethought.

Blood Money, like all the novels by Perry, works equally well on the level of character study as it does in nail-biting suspense. The novels can be read as much for their remarkable insights into human nature as for the excitement of a first-rate thriller. Surely Perry ranks among the very top of the crime-writing fraternity. --Otto Penzler

Dance for the Dead (Jane Whitfield Novel)

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"COMPELLING . . . NOBODY WRITES A CHASE BETTER THAN PERRY."

  *The Washington Post Book World



When eight-year-old Timothy Decker finds his parents brutally murdered, it's clear the Deckers weren't the intended victims: Timothy's own room--ransacked, all traces of his existence expertly obliterated *is the shocking evidence. Timothy's nanny, Mona, is certain about only one thing. Timmy needs to disappear, fast.



Only Jane Whitefield, a Native American "guide" who specializes in making victims vanish, can lead him to safety. But diverting Jane's attention is Mary Perkins, a desperate woman with S&L fraud in her past. Stalking Mary is a ruthless predator determined to find her *and the fortune she claims she doesn't have. Jane quickly creates a new life for Mary and jumps back on Timmy's case . . . not knowing that the two are fatefully linked to one calculating killer. . . .



"Spellbinding . . . Terrific . . . Jane Whitefield may be the most arresting protagonist in the 90s thriller arena. . . . Thrillers need good villains, and this one has a formidable SOB who is cold-blooded enough to satisfy anybody's taste."

  *Entertainment Weekly



"A terse thriller . . . Perry starts the story with a bang."

  *San Francisco Chronicle

Vanishing Act (Jane Whitfield Novel)

Thomas Perry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A wonderful series! 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Vanishing Act is the first in a series of five books about Jane Whitefield, an Indian guide who will take someone from where there are people who want to kill them -- to where they are safe. She provides people with a new identity and a new life. John Felker is looking for just that. He is a former cop turned accountant who is being set up as an embezzler. Someone is skimming money from the accounting firm's customers and depositing it into an account in John's name. There is also an open contract on his life, so he needs to disappear.

The book is written in two distinctly separate parts. The first part is about how Jane makes someone disappear. We follow Jane and John cross country as they are being chased by the men who are after John. We are introduced to people along the way who help make their escape possible by providing safe places to stay or creating fake documentation or getting them transportation. When Jane finally gets John safe, the story takes a new twist. The people we have met along their journey are being murdered. Someone has been tracking them and Jane fears for John's safety. She has to go back to save him before the killers find him too.

The Native American culture and history were very interesting. Jane uses her training and skills in tracking and in creating weapons from items she finds in the woods. I thought of a few questions along the way that I wanted answers to and was a bit disappointed when those answers, found late in the book, would have cleared everything up quite early. Surely Jane is better at this than I am and should have asked them herself. But then we wouldn't have had a story, right?

Armchair Interviews says: Definitely pick Vanishing Act and up the next one in this unique series.

Editorial Review:

Praised by critics, a thriller by an Edgar Award-winning author stars a Native American woman who uses ancient wisdom and modern street smarts to help fugitives cover their trails and begin new lives. Reprint. NYT.