Shadow Woman

Jane Whitefield: 3

ISBN: 0804115397 Order from: Amazon.com Barnes & Noble.com

Perry continues this excellent series with another novel full of suspense, remarkable characters, and wry humor.

Reviewed by David on June 07, 1998

Genre: Mystery (Suspense, Amerind)

Synopsis: Jane Whitefield, the woman who helped so many fugitives vanish, is about to retire from her dangerous career due to her marriage. She needs to finish one last job, where she helps a gambling manager hide from his suspicious bosses. This pits her against a team of hunters with the skill and creativity of top-notch assassins, and determination and malevolence of psychopaths. Her struggle for the safety of her client turns into a suspenseful race to preserve both her life and her marriage.

Full Review: This is a sequel to Dance for the Dead.

I continue to be very impressed by this series about Jane Whitefield, the Seneca woman who helps the fugitives escape with their lives, first introduced in Vanishing Act.

This time, the danger comes not from greed, but from paranoia. The owners of a Las Vegas casino suspect one of their trusted employees of being a turncoat. Rather than convince themselves of his good intentions, they decide to eliminate the risk. Before his unobtrusive murder can be accomplished, he disappears with the help of a professional—Jane.

The team of professional assassins sent after Jane and her client is a very determined, creative, and more than a little psychotic couple.

Jane's usual bag of tricks appear to be failing one after the other, and she gets progressively more desperate as her client is almost killed time after time.

Her struggle to get them both to safety puts an additional strain on her infant marriage. Meanwhile, the assassins are targeting her home. Her beloved husband is both a chink in her armor, and a hostage to fortune.

Perry maintains the suspense that he created earlier in the series. The constant tension of being on the run increases like a wound spring, interspersed with occasional mild humor.

I am in awe of the character of Jane, and almost as much with her new husband. The author makes them both be courageous, compassionate, intelligent and loyal, while still keeping them believable, subject to doubt and pain, and using humor to lighten distress.

There is an ironic symmetry in the book, something that has a potential to strain the plot, but here brought off without effort. The very end puts another ironic twist on the plot, in keeping with the whole style of the book.

The paperback version of Shadow Woman is now available.

Overall: 7; Plot: 7; Characters: 7.5; Style: 6; World-building: 5; Originality: 6;

ISBN: 0804115397 Order from: Amazon.com Barnes & Noble.com