Thomas Perry

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About Thomas Perry

THOMAS PERRY is the author of 23 novels including the Jane Whitefield series (Vanishing Act, Dance for the Dead, Shadow Woman, The Face Changers, Blood Money, Runner, Poison Flower, and A String of Beads), Death Benefits, and Pursuit, the first recipient of the Gumshoe Award for best novel. He won the Edgar for The Butcher's Boy, and Metzger's Dog was a New York Times Notable Book. The Independent Mystery Bookseller's Association included Vanishing Act in its "100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century," and Nightlife was a New York Times bestseller. Metzger's Dog was voted one of NPR's 100 Killer Thrillers--Best Thrillers Ever.

Thomas Perry was born in Tonawanda, New York in 1947. He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Rochester in 1974. He has worked as a park maintenance man, factory laborer, commercial fisherman, university administrator and teacher, and a writer and producer of prime time network television shows. He lives in Southern California. His website: www.thomasperryauthor.com

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The Old Man Jan 3, 2017

by Thomas Perry

( 1,450 )

$9.99

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Poison Flower: a retired intelligence officer is caught in “[a] harrowing hunt-and-hide adventure” (The New York Times).

To all appearances, Dan Chase is a harmless retiree in Vermont with two big mutts and a grown daughter he keeps in touch with by phone. But most sixty-year-old widowers don’t have multiple driver’s licenses, savings stockpiled in banks across the country, or two Beretta Nanos stashed in the spare bedroom closet. Most have not spent decades on the run.

Thirty-five years ago, as a young army intelligence hotshot, Chase was sent to Libya to covertly assist a rebel army. When the plan turned sour, Chase acted according to his conscience—and triggered consequences he never could have anticipated. To this day, someone still wants him dead. And just when he thought he was finally safe, Chase is confronted with the history he spent much of his life trying to escape.

“Perry drives deep into Jack Reacher territory in this stand-alone [novel] . . . Swift, unsentimental, and deeply satisfying. Liam Neeson would be perfect in the title role.” —Kirkus Reviews

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The Left-Handed Twin: A Jane Whitefield Novel Nov 16, 2021

by Thomas Perry

( 1,613 )

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"Another stunner from a modern master."—Booklist (Starred Review)

Rescue artist Jane Whitefield leads a deadly crime syndicate on a wild chase through the Northeast

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear. Fearing for their lives, fleeing dangerous situations, her clients come to her when they need to vanish completely—to assume a new identity and establish a new life somewhere they won’t be found. And when people are desperate enough to need her services, they come to the old house in rural western New York where Jane was raised to begin their escape.

It’s there that, one spring night, Jane finds a young woman fresh from LA with a whole lot of trouble behind her. After she cheated on her boyfriend, he dragged her to the home of the offending man and made her watch as he killed him. She testified against the boyfriend, but a bribed jury acquitted him, and now he’s free and trying to find and kill her.

Jane agrees to help, and it soon becomes clear that outsmarting the murderous boyfriend is not beyond Jane’s skills. But the boyfriend has some new friends: members of a Russian organized crime brotherhood. When they learn that Sara is traveling with a tall, dark-haired woman who disappears people, the Russians become increasingly interested in helping the boyfriend find the duo. They’ve heard rumors that such a woman existed—and believe that, if forcibly extracted, the knowledge she has of past clients could be worth millions.

Thus begins a bloodthirsty chase that winds through the cities of the northeast before finally plunging into Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness. But in a pursuit where nothing can be trusted, one thing is certain: only one party—Jane or her pursuers—will emerge alive.

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Strip May 12, 2010

by Thomas Perry

( 711 )

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“An amazingly entertaining crime novel” from the New York Times bestselling author of the Butcher’s Boy thrillers (Chicago Sun-Times, Favorite Books of the Year).

One of Stephen King’s “Must-Reads for Summer” (Entertainment Weekly)
A New York Times Notable Crime Book

An aging but formidable strip club owner, Claudiu “Manco” Kapak, has been robbed by a masked gunman as he placed his cash receipts in a bank’s night-deposit box. Enraged, he sends his half-dozen security men out to find a suspect who is spending lots of cash and is new enough to Los Angeles not to know he was robbing a gangster. Their search leads them to Joe Carver, an innocent but hardly defenseless newcomer who evades capture and sets out to make Kapak wish he’d chosen someone else.

Meanwhile, the real culprit, Jefferson Davis Falkins, and his new girlfriend Carrie seem to believe they’ve found a whole new profession: robbing Manco Kapak. Lieutenant Nick Slosser, the police detective in charge of the puzzling and increasingly violent case, has his own troubles, including worries about how he’s going to afford to send the oldest child of each of his two bigamous marriages to college without making their mothers suspicious. As this odd series of difficulties explodes into a triple killing, Carver finds himself in the middle of a brewing gang war over Kapak’s little empire, while Falkins and Carrie journey into territory more strange and violent than either had imagined.

“Perry is at his wicked best in Strip.”—The New York Times

“[A] rambunctiously entertaining L.A. crime novel . . . escapist reading at its best.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Vanishing Act (Jane Whitefield Book 1) Dec 18, 2007

by Thomas Perry

( 757 )

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“A challenging and satisfying thriller . . . [with] many surprising twists.”—The New York Times

Jane Whitefield is a Native American guide who leads people out of the wilderness—not the tree-filled variety but the kind created by enemies who want you dead. She is in the one-woman business of helping the desperate disappear. Thanks to her membership in the Wolf Clan of the Seneca tribe, she can fool any pursuer, cover any trail, and then provide her clients with new identities, complete with authentic paperwork. Jane knows all the tricks, ancient and modern; in fact, she has invented several of them herself.

So she is only mildly surprised to find an intruder waiting for her when she returns home one day. An ex-cop suspected of embezzling, John Felker wants Jane to do for him what she did for his buddy Harry Kemple: make him vanish. But as Jane opens a door out of the world for Felker, she walks into a trap that will take all her heritage and cunning to escape. . . .

Praise for Vanishing Act

“Thomas Perry keeps pulling fresh ideas and original characters out of thin air. The strong-willed heroine he introduces in Vanishing Act rates as one of his most singular creations.”—The New York Times Book Review

“One thriller that must be read. . . . Perry has created his most complex and compelling protagonist.”—San Francisco Examiner

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Forty Thieves Dec 15, 2015

by Thomas Perry

( 453 )

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Married sleuths cross paths with married assassins in this “priceless” mystery by the bestselling author of the Jane Whitefield series (The New York Times).

Sid and Ronnie Abel are a first-rate husband-and-wife detective team, both ex-LAPD. Ed and Nicole Hoyt are married assassins-for-hire living in the San Fernando Valley. Except for deadly aim with a Glock 17, the couples have little in common—until they’re hired to do damage control on the same murder. The body of research scientist James Ballantine has been pulled from a storm sewer, with two bullet holes in the back of his head.

With the case turning cold, Ballantine’s former employers bring in the Abels to succeed where the police have failed. As for the Hoyts, their mysterious contractors want to make sure that the facts about Ballantine’s death stay hidden. Now the Abels must try to survive as they circle ever closer to the truth, and to a dangerous pair guarding it with their lives.

From “a master of nail-biting suspense” (Los Angeles Times), comes a “propulsive, darkly humorous” (Publishers Weekly) “double-barreled Southern California thriller that moves almost faster than a speeding bullet” (The Wall Street Journal).

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The Burglar: A Novel Jan 8, 2019

by Thomas Perry

( 863 )

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A cunning thief is on the run for her life in a breakneck thriller from the New York Times–bestselling “master of nail-biting suspense” (Los Angeles Times).

Elle Stowell is a young woman with an unconventional profession: burglary. But Elle is no petty thief—with just the right combination of smarts, looks, and skills, she can easily stroll through ritzy Bel Air neighborhoods and pick out the perfect home for plucking the most valuable items. This is how Elle has always gotten by—she is good at it, and she thrives on the thrill. But after stumbling upon a grisly triple homicide while stealing from the home of a wealthy art dealer, Elle discovers that she is no longer the only one sneaking around. Somebody is searching for her.

As Elle realizes that her knowledge of the high-profile murder has made her a target, she races to solve the case before becoming the next casualty, using her breaking-and-entering skills to uncover the truth about exactly who the victims were and why someone might have wanted them dead. With high-stakes action and shocking revelations, The Burglar will keep readers on the edge of their seats as they barrel towards the heart-racing conclusion.

“The fact is, there are probably only half a dozen suspense writers now alive who can be depended upon to deliver high voltage shocks . . . Thomas Perry is one of them.” —Stephen King

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Eddie's Boy: A Novel (The Butcher's Boy Novels) Dec 1, 2020

by Thomas Perry

( 2,394 )

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A hit man is called back into action in this explosive thriller from the New York Times bestselling author and “master of nail-biting suspense” (Los Angeles Times).

Michael Shaeffer is a retired American businessman, living peacefully in England with his aristocratic wife. But her annual summer party brings strangers to their house, and with them, an attempt on Michael’s life. He is immediately thrust into action, luring his lethal pursuers to Australia before venturing into the lion’s den—the States—to figure out why the mafia is after him again, and how to stop them.

Eddie’s Boy jumps between Michael’s current predicament and the past, between the skillset he now ruthlessly and successfully employs and the training that made him what he is. We glimpse the days before he became the Butcher’s Boy, the highly skilled mob hit man who pulled a slaughter job on some double-crossing clients and started a mob war, to his childhood spent apprenticed to Eddie, a seasoned hired assassin. And we watch him pit two prominent mafia families against each other to eliminate his enemies one by one.

He’s meticulous in his approach, using his senior contact in the Organized Crime Division of the Justice Department for information, without ever allowing her to get too close to his trail. But will he be able to escape this new wave of young contract killers, or will the years finally catch up to him?

As the San Francisco Chronicle said about this Edgar Award-winning series, “The best thing about Thomas Perry’s thrillers are the devilishly ingenious schemes his protagonists devise to outwit their pursuers . . . Perry can really write.”

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The Butcher's Boy Jun 10, 2003

by Thomas Perry, Michael Connelly

( 1,056 )

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The Edgar Award–winning novel by the “master of nail-biting suspense”(Los Angeles Times)

Thomas Perry exploded onto the literary scene with The Butcher’s Boy. Back in print by popular demand, this spectacular debut, from a writer of “infernal ingenuity” (The New York Times Book Review), includes a new Introduction by bestselling author Michael Connelly.

Murder has always been easy for the Butcher’s Boy—it’s what he was raised to do. But when he kills the senior senator from Colorado and arrives in Las Vegas to pick up his fee, he learns that he has become a liability to his shadowy employers. His actions attract the attention of police specialists who watch the world of organized crime, but though everyone knows that something big is going on, only Elizabeth Waring, a bright young analyst in the Justice Department, works her way closer to the truth, and to the frightening man behind it.

Praise for The Butcher’s Boy

“A stunning debut . . . a brilliantly plotted thriller.”—The Washington Post

“A shrewdly planned and executed thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Thomas Perry has hit the mark.”—Houston Chronicle

“Totally enthralling.”—The New Yorker

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A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield Book 8) Jan 6, 2015

by Thomas Perry

( 790 )

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The Native American rescue artist goes back on the job in “another excellently engineered thriller” from the New York Times–bestselling mystery author (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review).

After two decades protecting innocent victims on the run, and a year after getting shot on the job, Jane McKinnon, née Whitefield, has settled into the quiet life of a suburban housewife in Amherst, New York. But that all changes when she sees all eight female leaders of the Tonawanda Seneca clan parked in her driveway in two black cars.

Jimmy, a childhood friend of Jane’s from the reservation, has been accused of murdering a local white man. But instead of turning himself in, he’s fled, and no one knows where he’s hiding. At the clan mothers’ request, Jane retraces a walking trip she and Jimmy took together when they were fourteen in hopes that he has gone the same way again. But it turns out the police are the least of Jimmy’s problems, and soon enough Jimmy and Jane are on the run together in this “first-rate suspense” novel from the Edgar Award–winning author (Booklist, starred review).

“Whitefield is an indelible figure—whip-smart, resourceful, brave and big-hearted.” —The Seattle Times

“Jane Whitefield is unique in the annals of detective fiction. She is a throwback to a tribal world, still loyal to the beliefs of the Seneca Indians and still adhering to the call of a lost era. Thomas Perry has once again resurrected a remarkable character who seems imbued with a strange immortality and an unusual morality, and he is to be congratulated.” —The Washington Times

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Jane Whitefield: A Mysterious Profile (Mysterious Profiles) Jun 7, 2022

by Thomas Perry

$2.99

Get the backstory on an amazing heroine in this suspenseful kidnapping tale from the bestselling author of Vanishing Act and The Left-Handed Twin.

A Native American of Seneca descent, Jane Whitefield helps people in harm’s way disappear without a trace and take on entirely new lives with new identities. Of course, not everyone is a fan of Jane’s work . . .

There is a group of men who would like to speak with the elusive woman. That’s why they’ve kidnapped three people connected to Jane to serve as bait. One of the poor souls is Jane’s longtime friend and neighbor, Jake Reinert.

As the three hostages ponder their escape, Jake begins to tell the story of the one person who could rescue them from a horrible death: Jane Whitefield.

Praise for Thomas Perry and the Jane Whitefield Novels

“A master of nail-biting suspense.” —Los Angeles Times

“At a time when franchise characters are publishing gold, [Jane Whitefield] is the sort of protagonist most crime novelists would kill for.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Whitefield is an indelible figure—whip-smart, resourceful, brave and big-hearted.” —The Seattle Times

“The tension is thick, the story unfolds at a rapid pace, the characters are well developed, and, as usual in a Thomas Perry novel, the tale is tightly written.” —Associated Press

“Layer upon layer of deception and intrigue . . . Smooth action writing and a remarkable mastery of escape techniques—one would hate to be a debt collector in search of the author.” —Publishers Weekly

Runner (Jane Whitefield Book 6) Jan 7, 2010

by Thomas Perry

( 614 )

$12.99

The New York Times bestselling author “blend[s] the frenetic pacing of a top-notch thriller with Native American mysticism” in Jane Whitefield’s return (Publishers Weekly).

“The world’s foremost specialist in hiding fugitives from their pursuers is back with a vengeance” in this “high-potency thriller” (Kirkus Reviews).

For more than a decade, Jane Whitefield practiced her unusual profession: “I’m a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is.” Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of guns-for-hire. That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she’s made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner. Her quest for safety sets in motion a mission that may be as much of a rescue operation as it is a chance for revenge.

“Readers who have been clamoring for the return of Thomas Perry’s most popular heroine can stop waiting. After a nine-year absence, Jane Whitefield is back.”—The Associated Press

“A first-class thriller and the welcome return of an outstanding series.”—Booklist (starred review)

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The Bomb Maker Jan 2, 2018

by Thomas Perry

( 446 )

$11.99

A “twisty, timely, and pulse-pounding” thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of the Butcher’s Boy novels (Entertainment Weekly).

A threat is called into the LAPD Bomb Squad and when tragedy ensues, the fragmented unit turns to Dick Stahl, a former Bomb Squad commander who now operates his own private security company. Just returned from a tough job in Mexico, Stahl is at first reluctant to accept the offer, but his sense of duty to the technicians he trained is too strong to turn it down. On his first day back at the head of the squad, Stahl’s three-person team is dispatched to a suspected car bomb. And it quickly becomes clear to him that they are dealing with an unusual mastermind—one whose intended target seems to be the Bomb Squad itself.

As the shadowy organization sponsoring this campaign of violence puts increasing pressure on the bomb maker, and Stahl becomes dangerously entangled with a member of his own team, the fuse on this high-stakes plot only burns faster. The Bomb Maker is Thomas Perry’s biggest, most unstoppable thriller yet.

“Plenty of character, plenty of emotion, plenty of insider expertise, but most of all plenty of irresistible momentum toward a fantastic climax―in other words, The Bomb Maker is typical Thomas Perry.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Mr. Perry, in this first-rate thriller, proves as cagy as his criminal mastermind: The reader rarely anticipates his next move. He balances breathtaking suspense with romantic intrigue.”—The Wall Street Journal

“The intense thrills of Thomas Perry’s The Bomb Maker are almost unbearable.”—The New York Times Book Review

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

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