Dance for the Dead

Dance for the Dead is the second of eight novels in the Jane Whitefield series by Thomas Perry. I read the first one (Vanishing Act) about 2 ½ years ago, and only got back to this one because I was hounded to do so by two bibliophile friends (M. Gage and J. Healy) who are obviously great fans of Perry. They were right. This is an excellent crime/detective novel, and I’ve already downloaded the next one. I have some books ahead of Shadow Woman in my queue, but it won’t take me so long to get back to Perry.

Jane Whitefield is a Seneca woman who helps people disappear from whatever trouble they’ve been facing, but in this case, the novel started by helping an 8-year-old boy reappear. Timmy John Phillips is an heir to a fortune, and when he disappeared to save his life, his enormous trust was being managed by a firm which is in the process of robbing him. The firm is attempting to declare that he’s dead so they can finish off his trust, and Timmy has to get to court to prove that he is still alive. But, there are people who are trying to make sure that does not happen. In the process, two of Jane’s helpers are killed, and then in the courthouse, she gets into a fistfight with Timmy’s would-be abductors just as Timmy crashes into the judge’s chambers to declare himself alive.

As the result of the courthouse altercation, Jane spends a couple days in jail where she runs into Mary Perkins, a woman who needs to disappear. And so the stories of Mary, a woman who has stolen money during the Savings & Loan crisis of 1989-90, and Timmy become mixed together. The bad guy in all of this is a former cop, Barraclough, now the director of the Los Angeles office of Intercontinental Security. In Barraclough, Perry has created an excellent evil foe with whom Whitefield would seem to be overmatched.

The author takes us into current day Indian culture and there’s a mild thread of mysticism to the story. However, the mysticism is not over-the-top like some of Steven King’s books. Thanks to Gage and Healy, I’m back on track for more Thomas Perry.