A String of Beads

November 3, 2014
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.