Blood Money by Thomas Perry was originally published in 1999. My paperback copy is 371 pages. The following review summarizes the plot nicely. There were times it was very exciting and other places that is was excruciatingly slow.
At Amazon, From Publishers Weekly:
Jane Whitefield, first introduced in Perry's Vanishing Act, makes her fifth appearance as a ghostmaker, someone who provides new identities for people in trouble. In this fast-paced thriller, Jane, a one-woman witness protection program, is semiretired, married to a doctor and living a quiet life until a teenage girl, Rita Shelford, comes to her door seeking help. The girl is being hunted, having witnessed a mob shakedown at the Florida house she was employed to clean. Protecting the girl propels Jane into a series of adventures involving Bernie the Elephant, an old man with a photographic memory who has kept Mafia financial records in his head for decades. With Jane's help, Bernie steals billions of dollars from the Mafia accounts and donates the money to charity. Not happy, the mobsters use every trick to capture Jane and Rita. The two women cross the U.S. several times, barely staying one step ahead of their pursuers. While there are many exciting moments, the story bogs down in several places while the mobsters speculate, rehashing information the reader already knows. Perry's writing style and vocabulary are easy and simplistic, and Jane sometimes seems too cool, and too smart, for her own good. The Mafia characters are numerous and interchangeable, and the story ends limply, with four unnecessary closing chapters. This is far from Perry's best, but it's still a quick, easy read with a few thrills. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Quotes:
"There were still moments when the old life seemed to be on the verge of returning - there would be something out of place near the vanishing point of her sight or in the periphery." pg. 1
"She makes people disappear....Someone in Florida told me about her...." pg. 26
"We've told you what we're going to do. What you're going to do hasn't changed. You're going to a place far away where you can pass as a different person" pg. 67
"This doesn't do anything for you except help build a deeper cover....I have other things like that too. They don't have any legal status, but everybody has a few: auto club membership, library card, and so on. You carry them around in your wallet, and it helps make Peter Moore a real person, not a flat picture of a person." pg. 84-85
"Identity is a slippery concept. We think that any time anyone sees our faces, they know us. They'll be able to pick us out of a crowd forever. Sometimes that's true, but other times it's not. The person who sees you forms a picture of you in his memory." pg. 103
"I don't have maternal instincts, I'm a lawyer." pg. 311
No comments:
Post a Comment