Review by New York Times Review
PICKING UP ONE of Charles Todd's post-World War I historical mysteries is like starting off on an uncertain journey. In each book, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, a shellshocked veteran of the Great War, makes his solitary way to some provincial English town, ostensibly to assist the local constabulary with a baffling crime but also to bear witness to the incalculable devastation brought about by the fighting. In 16 previous novels, the authors (a mother and son who write under a pen name) have sent their haunted hero all over the country, taking stock of the terrible desolation he sees everywhere and knowing that true justice is beyond his powers. A FINE SUMMER'S DAY (Morrow/HarperCollins, $26.99) is a bittersweet gift to longtime readers of this wonderful series, a prequel that opens in 1914 on one of those perfect English days, "peaceful, measured, and like the Empire, destined to go on forever" - the sort of day a carefree young man like Rutledge would choose to propose to his beloved. And it's just bad luck it also happens to be the day the Austrian archduke and his wife are assassinated in Sarajevo. This intimate look into the personal life of a detective we've known only as a damaged soul is no small gift. Rutledge's only serious concern, for the moment, is how to squire his fiancée to all those festive engagement parties when he's constantly called away to investigate a series of inexplicable murders. Although that mystery is intelligently developed and fairly resolved, the greater gift here is the portrait it presents of England before the war - and before young ladies began urging their men to march off to France. "I don't want everyone thinking you're a coward," Rutledge's fiancée declares. But on that fine June day, England was lovely, a land of "fields and meadows, distant church towers and green countryside," and life was simple. A man could take pride in his work as a farmer or a barber or a furniture maker, and although a woman couldn't vote or serve on a jury, she was far more influential than her husband when it came to village life. Girls played lawn games, and boys were boys. "They rambled, they fished, they went to the seaside, hunted birds' nests," and they had all the time in the world to grow up. EIGHT SENECA CLAN mothers ("stronger and older than law") go up against the organized crime elders of upstate New York in a STRING OF BEADS (Mysterious Press/ Grove/Atlantic, $26), another excellently engineered thriller from Thomas Perry featuring Jane Whitefield, a Seneca Indian who has made a career of helping others escape from danger. The clan mothers summon Jane to track down her childhood friend Jimmy Sanders, who has foolishly fled the Tonawanda Reservation after being falsely charged with the murder of some jerk who started a fight with him in a bar. After a grueling hike to an archaeological site in Pennsylvania they had visited as teenagers, she finds her old friend waiting. When their trek home is rudely interrupted by mob enforcers dispatched to kill Jimmy, Jane summons all her survival skills to teach him how to make himself invisible. There can be several steps to this transformation, from simple alterations in appearance (carrying a book makes a great disguise) to the demanding pursuit of a new profession. But taking on a new identity is a tricky business, and while Jimmy seems liberated by the challenge, Jane finds herself drawn deeper into her clan identity and her neglected cultural heritage. All this soul-searching and car chases too. What more could we ask from an escape artist like Perry? THE WORD "CREEPY" (attached to descriptive adverbs like "insanely" and "diabolically" or even "deliciously") immediately comes to mind after a quick dip into a PLEASURE AND A CALLING (Picador, $25), a psychological suspense novel by Phil Hogan about a real estate broker who keeps a set of keys to all the homes he's sold in the past 17 years. William Heming, who narrates his own story in a prim, professorial tone, fancies himself a patron of his pretty little English town, and to this end will periodically slip into a house to monitor the lives of its residents. Insisting that he's no stalker or voyeur, Heming sees himself in a more godlike guise, the benevolent overseer who will change a light bulb or rewire a loose connection. "I am happy on the fringes," he insists, "listening and watching, excitedly awaiting your next move." But when someone steps out of line, he'll stop at nothing, not even murder, to keep his kingdom all to himself. THE SOUL OF DISCRETION (Overlook, $26.95) subverts all our assumptions about Lafferton, the pleasant cathedral town where Susan Hill sets her civilized mysteries featuring Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler. Who knew that lovely Lafferton had a mean side, a neighborhood where residents were often awakened by children screaming in the night? And who would dream that the Honorable Will Fernley, third son of Lord Fernley, would be arrested and sent to prison for his participation in a sophisticated pedophile ring that's operating in the area? In a daring move to track down the leaders and bankrollers of this sleazy organization, Serrailler goes undercover as a convicted pedophile in the experimental "therapeutic community" where Fernley is doing time. Be assured that our hero's depressing experience will have a sobering effect on the whole town.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 25, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In the eighth novel in this series, Jane Whitefield, now married to a surgeon, using her married name of McKinnon and trying to recover from the physical and mental trauma left by the bad guys in the preceding novel, Poison Flower (2013), wants nothing more than to be an ordinary housewife. But she still takes precautions, changing her routine constantly, going to as many as 14 grocery stores before she returns to the first, so that no one can track her. Jane herself is a tracker; her Seneca upbringing gave her skills in finding and hiding people that she has used for more than 20 years. And when eight older women, representing the eight Seneca clans, visit Jane at her Amherst, New York, home and ask her to find Jimmy, her childhood friend from summers at the reservation, Jane can't refuse. Jimmy is wanted for the murder of a man during a bar fight; the elders want Jimmy, whom they believe to be innocent, to come home and surrender. Jane quickly finds Jimmy, and then both of them are hunted down by an ever-growing cast of characters. Many scenes have an almost Twilight Zone atmosphere of sudden recognition. The landscape is filled with references to tribal history, and Perry also delivers fascinating information on how to hide and change identity, starting with dumping the cell phone. First-rate suspense.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Edgar-winner Perry's explosive eighth Jane Whitefield novel (after 2012's Poison Flower), Jane, who helps people in danger disappear, would like nothing better than to disappear herself-into the quieter side of her double life, as an upstate New York surgeon's wife-but her Seneca clan elders have other plans. At first, her mission seems straightforward enough: find her now-fugitive childhood friend from the rez, Jimmy Sanders, who faces a murder charge in connection with the shooting of a man he'd bested in a bar fight a few months earlier, and bring him in safely to surrender to authorities. But it quickly becomes clear the case is far more complex, with ruthless mob-connected muscle apparently determined to kill Jimmy first. During the extended, blood-splattered series of chases that ensues, those willing to suspend disbelief and overlook several cartoonish side characters can anticipate a hair-raising adventure with a woman warrior who would make her Seneca forbears proud. Agent: Mel Berger, WME. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Perry (The Boyfriend) is back with the eighth book (after Poison Flower) in his "Jane Whitefield" series. One year earlier Jane had been shot, beaten, and tortured before she was able to escape her captors. Still recovering from this incident at her home in Amherst, NY, she is approached by all eight Seneca clan mothers from the local reservation, who ask for her help in finding and protecting a childhood friend of hers. The women are concerned that Jimmy Sander's disappearance will be seen as a sign of guilt that he killed the white laborer with whom he had a bar fight. Jane sets aside her quiet routine to help a fellow Seneca evade arrest for a murder he says he didn't commit. She also needs to find out who and why another group of men is desperately looking for Jimmy. VERDICT Perry's thriller swings into action as soon as Jane is on the trail. A breathless pace sets the tone with numerous close calls as the expert, clever heroine tries to solve the crime before Jimmy gets caught. Enthusiastically recommended for series fans and for readers who appreciate strong female protagonists. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14; six-city tour.]-Deb West, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA (c) Copyright 2014. 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.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A refreshing change of pace for Jane Whitefield McKinnon, who specializes in helping people hide from dangerous pursuers (Poison Flower, 2012, etc.): She's asked to find someone who's already gone to earth.No request that comes from the eight clan mothers of the Tonawanda Seneca clan in which Jane grew up can be denied. So Jane doesn't hesitate to leave her long-suffering husband to search for her childhood friend Jimmy Sanders, who punched a drunk who took a swing at him in an Akron bar and then found the cops building a homicide case against him when the drunk, Nick Bauermeister, was shot dead in the home he shared with his girlfriend, Chelsea Schnell. Jimmy makes it easy for Jane to find himeverything in this installment is unexpectedly easybut soon enough, they're predictably on the run together. The only thing that's not predictable is the reason why. Nick, it turns out, didn't just work for Daniel Crane's Box Farm Personal Storage facility; he worked for Dan as a thief, and Dan, who killed him in the hope of securing Chelsea's favors himself, turns out to be seriously connected to people who are even more seriously connected. The upshot is that it's not just the law that's looking for Jimmy; an awful lot of conscientious, well-armed professionals are involved as well, some of them employees of mob uber-boss Lorenzo Malconi, some of them on loan by associates eager to do Malconi a favor. Oddly, Jane and Jimmy (and later Chelsea) never seem to be squeezed, as you'd expect, between the cops and robbers looking for them; instead, it's the bad guys who are squeezed between Technical Sgt. Isaac Lloyd, of the New York State Police, and Jane herself, whose best defense is often a good offense. Perry (The Boyfriend, 2013, etc.) supplies twists and thrills aplenty, but it's hard to feel the suffocating kind of suspense that's his stock in trade when the pursuers seem to be in more danger than the pursued. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
