10/22/2018
Burglar Elle Stowell, the whip-smart, fearless protagonist of this uneven standalone from Edgar winner Perry (The Bomb Maker), comes from a family of thieves. She approaches every job analytically and is meticulous in her planning. But when she breaks into an L.A. mansion and finds three dead bodies—one male art gallery owner and two affluent married women—naked on a bed in the master bedroom, she becomes the target of a group of professional killers. As the killers’ search for her intensifies and the body count rises, the diminutive burglar must uncover the reason why the gallery owner and women were murdered before she becomes the next casualty. The first part of this tight narrative, which is equal parts mystery and thriller, is virtually un-put-downable. But the story starts to unravel in the second part, when numerous plot holes become apparent. In addition, the weak ending will leave readers less than satisfied. Perry fans will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Mel Berger, WME. (Jan.)
Praise for Thomas Perry
"Perry…builds suspense with all the subtlety of a master chef nursing a risotto to a buttery perfection. It's nothing new to call Perry a master of the genre, but it's no less true for being widely acknowledged."Booklist
“Perry is a master of plotting…Most readers know him from his Jane Whitefield ‘disappeared’ series. His thrillers, of which this is one of the best, are even better.” ―Globe and Mail(Toronto)
“Perry delivers a perfect melding of character and plot, light and dark, and he totally immerses the reader in an irresistible narrative.” Booklist, “Top 10 Crime Novels of the Year,” on Forty Thieves
“Since his Edgar Award-winning debut novel, The Butcher's Boy . . . Thomas Perry has put together a rewarding string of suspense novels with as much cool competence as some of his best protagonists bring to their work . . . Perry’s a real pro.” Shelf Awareness, on The Old Man
“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.”―Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal, on The Bomb Maker
08/01/2018
Just nominated for the 2018 Macavity Awards, Perry here introduces us to Elle Stowell, who thrives on stealing from the Bel Air rich and famous. Then she encounters a gruesome triple murder and realizes that she had better find the killer before he finds her.
Narrator Christina Delaine effectively captures the strength, confidence, and smarts of Elle Stowell, the burglar at the center of Perry’s latest audiobook. In the course of her well-planned burglary of a wealthy Los Angeles home, Elle comes upon a brutal murder scene and suddenly finds herself the target of a militaristic security force. She decides that she has to solve the murder and provide incontrovertible proof to the authorities of what’s really going on. Listeners will find themselves cheering for the burglar as she is a relative hero compared to those intent on her demise. Delaine’s tempo and ability to convey Elle’s tension and resolve make for a highly engaging listening experience even when the plot stretches the limits of credulity. E.Q. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Narrator Christina Delaine effectively captures the strength, confidence, and smarts of Elle Stowell, the burglar at the center of Perry’s latest audiobook. In the course of her well-planned burglary of a wealthy Los Angeles home, Elle comes upon a brutal murder scene and suddenly finds herself the target of a militaristic security force. She decides that she has to solve the murder and provide incontrovertible proof to the authorities of what’s really going on. Listeners will find themselves cheering for the burglar as she is a relative hero compared to those intent on her demise. Delaine’s tempo and ability to convey Elle’s tension and resolve make for a highly engaging listening experience even when the plot stretches the limits of credulity. E.Q. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
2018-10-02
In case you've forgotten, Perry (The Bomb Maker, 2018, etc.) reminds you that it takes a thief to catch a killer.
Elle Stowell has robbed a lot of houses, but her discovery at the home of retired financial services officer Nick Kavanagh, owner of the Kavanagh Gallery, is a first: the naked corpse of Kavanagh, together with those of socialite Anne Satterthwaite Mannon and Hollywood director's wife Valerie McGee Teason, huddled together in the host's bed, each of them shot in the head. Even more bizarre, a digital movie camera at the crime scene has recorded everything from Kavanagh's original propositioning of the two women to Elle's entrance 12 hours later. What to do? Since "Elle was both good in intention and bad at carrying out good intentions," she neither destroys the memory card nor brings it to the LAPD but anonymously mails them a copy from which she's excised her own image and keeps a copy of the undoctored card herself to prove that she arrived on the scene long after the murders because she thinks that the worst thing that could happen to her is getting arrested. Sure enough, her very next job is interrupted by some people—she's not sure who—she hears walking around the house, and her plan to join a friend on a long-distance vacation till things cool down ends with things considerably heated up. By that time, however, Elle's figured out that the biggest threat to her safety isn't the police but the killer whose handiwork she stumbled on. Instead of trying to solve the murders in order to prove her own innocence, she now has a much more compelling reason to figure out who's got her in their sights: turning them over to the authorities before they can kill her too.
All the relentless drive of Perry's tales of concealment specialist Jane Whitefield (Poison Flower, 2012, etc.) but there's a less compelling logic behind both the burglar's actions and the murderer's.