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Jane knows all the tricks; in fact, she has invented several of them herself in the ten years she has been teaching fugitives to live with new identities. Many of her clients have been innocent people whom the institutions of society have been too slow and cumbersome to protect, but an increasing number have been like the gambler Harry Kemple: people who aren't especially admirable but who aren't bad enough to deserve to die prematurely.
Jane opens her door to find in her house an uninvited visitor named John Felker, the latest to run to her for sanctuary. Felker is not like the others Jane has helped, and everything about him is disquieting. He doesn't even know whom he is running from—only that whoever is framing him as an embezzler has already circulated an open contract in the prison system for his death. Maybe his problems began years ago, when he was a policeman; a good cop makes an enemy with each arrest. But perhaps he is still a policeman and has invented precisely the right story to entrap Jane. Or perhaps he is something even worse.
The unexpected guest draws this exceptional woman into an adventure of mystery, love and sacrifice, betrayal and vengeance, and propels her on a pursuit that takes her from the night streets of Los Angeles and Vancouver to the dark, unexplored regions of her own mind. There is no way for Jane Whitefield to survive this particular vanishing act except to uncover the hidden meanings of violent events that have kept police forces and criminal syndicates equally mystified for years. She must see beyond the cement and steel of the cities and learn to see as her Indian ancestors did.
Vanishing Act is Edgar Award winner Thomas Perry at the top of his form, pitting a heroine like no other against a cunning, implacable enemy in a world where mercy and brutality exist in equal measure and the only way to survive is by one's wits.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
May 14, 2009 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781400190256
- File size: 290146 KB
- Duration: 10:04:28
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 2, 1995
Perry's sixth novel (after Sleeping Dogs) is a taut thriller that at times reads like an extended, though flawed, character study of its heroine. Jane Whitefield, half-white, half-Indian member of the Seneca Wolf clan, helps people disappear-people like Rhonda Eckerly, fleeing her abusive husband, or Harry Kemple, hoping to stay alive after witnessing a gangland shooting. Like a one-woman witness protection program, Jane has helped both vanish by giving them new identities and new starts at life. Now an alleged new victim has invaded Jane's upstate New York house: John Felker claims that he's a cop-turned-accountant, is being framed as an embezzler and has a contract out on his life. Almost immediately, the men chasing Felker appear, and Jane leads him farther upstate, to a Canadian Indian reservation where he can build a new life. Jane is an original and fascinating creation. Like Andrew Vachss's series hero, Burke, she operates outside the law, but with a particular slant born of her distinct character and Seneca heritage. Perry tells her story in a trim and brisk manner, moreover, with plenty of action and suspense. It takes Jane far longer than it will most readers to figure out that Felker is other than what he says, however, and while her trusting nature, which borders on gullibility, generates tension, it doesn't mesh with her hard-boiled profession and hunter-like wiles. It's only when the truth behind Felker is revealed, and Jane acts decisively on it, that most readers will regain the respect they've lost for this otherwise likable and unusually intriguing heroine. -
Thomas Perry's first Jane Whitefield adventure (1996) is back in circulation, and it's still a humdinger, thanks to narrator Joyce Bean. Whitefield provides those who need it a sort of privatized government protection program. When someone who is deserving needs to vanish (for example, a battered wife), Whitefield provides the escape and deep cover. However, when one of her former clients and one of her abettors is murdered, Jane's world begins to spin out of control. She uses logic and Indian lore (she is full-blooded Native American) to solve a complicated scenario that's marked by revenge, betrayal, and brutality. Bean's performance is an act that's hard to follow. She's highly believable as Whitefield and modulates the story's emotional ups and downs easily. She's especially good at male voices. This production makes one glad that Perry's first novel itself hasn't vanished. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
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