Poison Flower

December 19, 2011
Near the start of Perry’s exciting seventh Jane Whitefield novel (after 2009’s Runner), Jane cleverly frees prisoner James Shelby, unjustly convicted of murdering his wife, from the criminal court building in downtown Los Angeles, though crooks posing as cops who are working for the real killer seize Jane after shooting her in the leg. Jane, who later manages to escape, fights back by drawing on the special warrior skills passed down from her Seneca ancestors. As Jane takes on various thugs and assorted enemies, including a predatory hotel manager, she demonstrates that brains, cunning, and determination conquer brawn and arrogance. Despite the emphasis on action, Perry ensures the characters shine, notably Shelby and an abused wife who hooks up with Jane. While Jane lives a quiet double life as the devoted wife of a surgeon in upstate New York, she no longer need pretend that she wants to give up her job of helping the innocent. Agent: Robert Lescher, Lescher & Lescher.

December 1, 2011

Despite having promised her husband that she would retire, Jane Whitefield, a Seneca woman who helps abused women and other victims disappear, is drawn back to her calling by the case of James Shelby, an innocent man imprisoned for murdering his runaway wife. Jane engineers an ingenious escape and is soon on the run with Shelby. They are joined by a woman whose ex-husband is tracking her with deadly intent. On their trail are three goons, employed by a wealthy man who kills his sexual companions for kicks. The men capture and torture Jane, after which they intend to auction her off to the men she has harmed by her past heroics. But Jane, ever resourceful and always in touch with her tribe's spiritual roots, has other plans in mind. VERDICT Anyone who has read Perry knows the anticipatory pleasure that comes just from holding a new book with his name on the cover. Fans of Jane, last seen in Runner (2009), will enjoy this elegantly written tale of pursuit and revenge.--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2012
Perry's heroine, Jane Whitefield, continues to be one of the most original and intriguing characters in contemporary crime fiction. In the series featuring her, which began with Vanishing Act (1996), she takes it upon herself to spirit people away from dangerous situations, hide them from their pursuers, and give them new identities. Half Caucasian, half Native American, Whitefield draws upon the oral history of her Seneca warrior ancestors to cover up trails when she and those she's rescuing are being chased and also to track pursuers herself. The large opening chunk of the seventh Whitefield novel showcases the Seneca warrior's endurance under torture. Whitefield is strapped to a small mattress in a dark, locked, and guarded room, hours after she engineered the escape of a wrongly convicted killer from the criminal court in Los Angeles. The men who kidnapped her just outside the court are embarking on a torture regimen to make her reveal the runner's location so they can kill him. The intensity of Whitefield's commentary on her ordeal, delivered during and between beatings, as she summons the warrior skills of indifference and transcendence, suggest the sustained focus in Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum.And then Perry plunges us into one of his patented, nerve-racking, extended chase scenes before the novel's harrowing climax. Makes you cringe, and makes you think.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)