Review by New York Times Review
There are two ways to recognize a police procedural by the Norwegian author Jo Nesbo: the dense plot is supremely detailed, and (here's the real surprise) even the most dedicated career criminal will stop what he's doing and find time for a serious philosophical discussion - often, with his arresting officer. The title of NEMESIS (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99) refers to the implacable Greek goddess of justice and vengeance, so it's almost obligatory that everyone should be brooding on these subjects. Inspector Harry Hole, the sexy, soulful Oslo homicide detective who figures in Nesbo's novels, knows where he stands - out to get the villain who killed his partner in "Redbreast," if it takes him the rest of his life. "Revenge cleanses," he says, quoting Aristotle on catharsis. But during the course of investigating a brilliantly executed bank robbery, Harry discovers that revenge is a flexible concept. To the cunning killer, it's "the thinking man's reflex," "the foundation of civilization." But a Gypsy sage, himself a master bank robber doing prison time, honors a more primitive definition of blood vengeance ("the best and the most dangerous intoxicant God gave to humanity") when he fingers the killer Harry is hunting. On the other hand, "vengeance is one of those territorial things you men like so much," Harry's current beloved says as she admonishes him for confusing duty with a "Neanderthal urge." And his new partner, Beate Lonn, fresh from the police academy and gifted with an uncanny facility for recalling faces, won't even play the game. But when an old flame, an artist who calls her current work-in-progress "Nemesis," is found dead in her bed the morning after a drunken Harry passes out on her, it looks as if someone really does have it in for him. This murder along with the previous homicide, the robbery and a couple of fishy suicides interlock into one big puzzle that's eventually solved in a satisfying way. But to keep everything moving for almost 500 pages (and even with a crisp, clean translation by Don Bartlett), Nesbo falls back on coincidence and some other questionable devices. The problem isn't that he fails to tie up all his story lines, it's that he does it so carefully and neatly that the plot machinery is revealed for what it is - machinery. Thomas Perry writes legitimate escapist fiction. There's nothing remotely metaphorical about the flight path of RUNNER (Otto Penzler/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26) once a pregnant teenager shows up in Buffalo, chased from San Diego by six thugs who set off a bomb in a hospital, attempting to kidnap her. Perry's heroine, Jane Whitefield, has been living a quiet life as a doctor's wife, but there was a time when she used her Seneca Indian skills to create new identities for hunted people and guide them to safety. She may be rusty, but instinct kicks in when she learns that Christine Monahan is running from "a bully, a sneak, a loafer, a coward" under intense pressure to present his rich and overbearing parents with a grandchild. Childless and deeply unhappy about it, Jane steers her charge to Minneapolis, watching over Christine with a tenderness that's a distinct departure from her usual cut-to-the-chase style. While this curbs the breakneck action Perry is noted for, it's no loss for readers more fascinated by the nuts and bolts behind the fantasy of starting a new life with a new identity. Laura Benedict's CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS (Ballantine, $25) could be an object lesson in the decline of the psychological suspense story. Or it could just be an example of overwrought writing. The story opens well, with three adolescent girls from Cincinnati playing at witchcraft, trying to conjure an "angel" obliging enough to initiate them into womanhood. Thirteen-year-old Roxanne, Del and Alice are stunned when a young Roman Catholic priest materializes at the parochial school they attend, and the boldest of the girls stakes a claim on him. Things happen, the priest suffers, time passes. But once the friends are well and truly grown, they all come under the influence of the same mysterious stranger. And then one of them commits suicide. While there's potential here for a disturbing psychological study of adolescent cruelty and adult guilt, Benedict takes it around the bend with a plot that's heavy on sensationalism and light on logic. When did publishers get so smart about reissuing out-of-print mysteries? For the longest time, paperback reprints were just last year's best sellers, but not anymore. Pioneers of 1950s American noir like Ross Macdonald are shown true respect when Vintage Crime's Black Lizard imprint reissues their books in sturdy editions with properly sleazy covers. The classic English mystery of the 1930s and '40s also lives on so long as Rue Morgue keeps the faith by reprinting master craftsmen like Nicholas Blake and Michael Gilbert. But it takes a special kind of wit to resurrect Charlie Chan, as Academy Chicago has done With THE CHINESE PARROT and THE HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY (paper, $14.95 each), ingenious puzzle mysteries written by Earl Derr Biggers in the 1920s. Another brainstorm, on the part of Felony & Mayhem, has brought THE PEKING MAN IS MISSING (paper, $14.95) back into print. This speculative novel was written by Claire Taschdjian, an amateur archaeologist who was one of the last people to handle the bones of Peking Man before they were lost - or stolen - during World War II. Last year's best seller? Don't make me laugh. In Jo Nesbo's police procedurals, even criminals find time for serious philosophical discussion.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Perry returns to his Jane Whitefield series (The Face-Changers, 1998) after several stand-alones and picks up right where he left off unrelenting suspense surrounded by a detail-rich exposition on the art of disappearing. Whitefield, a Native American living a quiet life as the wife of a surgeon in upstate New York, is retired from her under-the-radar work as a guide, someone who helps people in peril vanish from their pursuers. Then a bomb explodes during a hospital fund-raiser, and Jane discovers that the explosion was directed at a pregnant young woman, a runner desperately in need of disappearing. Back in the game but having lost more than a step (cell phones and ubiquitous databases, among other technological innovations, have dramatically changed the business of disappearing), Jane sets out to guide one more runner to safety. Naturally, it doesn't go as planned, and rather than protecting the hunted, Jane becomes the hunter. Perry's premise demands remarkable attention to detail, and much of the appeal in this series is watching those details fall into place, especially as the ever-quickening pace pumps into overdrive. Like Ridley Pearson, though, Perry never sacrifices nuances of character to the demands of his breakneck pace. A first-class thriller and the welcome return of an outstanding series.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Perry's exciting if relatively formulaic sixth Jane Whitefield novel (after 1999's Blood Money) finds Jane, a Native American "guide" who helps people assume new identities, living quietly under an alias in western New York State, married to a local doctor. Shortly after pregnant Christine Monahan shows up at the hospital where Jane's husband works, desperately searching for Jane, a bomb explodes in the hospital. The two women wind up fleeing cross-country with a cadre of thugs hot on their trail. Jane learns that Christine is the girlfriend of an abusive real estate mogul in San Diego obsessed with finding her and their unborn child. By giving Christine and her baby new identities, Jane once again puts herself in mortal danger. Blending the frenetic pacing of a top-notch thriller with Native American mysticism, this entry will more than satisfy longtime fans, though newcomers to the series may be confused by the lack of any kind of substantial backstory. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this long-awaited sixth entry in Edgar Award winner Perry's (The Butcher's Boy) Jane Whitefield series, a bomb explodes during a hospital fundraiser, prompting the Native American guide to go on the run with the bomb's intended target, a young pregnant girl. Though it's been ten years since the publication of Blood Money, the last series entry, Perry effortlessly captures the old juice, further using Jane's sudden return from retirement to add a poignancy and fierce determination to this complex tale. Narrator Joyce Bean (The Long Road Home) struggles a bit with male voices but paces the story well. Highly recommended. [Audio clip available through www.tantor.com; all the previous titles in this series are also available on audio from Tantor Media.-Ed.]-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
