Silence

Someone is trying to kill her. She employs a private detective to help her flee to a new life under a new identity somewhere else. But the people who want to kill her does not give up. And she has not told the private detective everything about why she is hunted. An interesting picture is also given of two professional assasins who hunt for her, even though it is somewhat improbable that such a pair would succeed in the real world.

A chance encounter with The Boyfriend put Thomas Perry on my radar screen. I am not sure how or why I have missed this Edgar Award winning writer of nineteen books, but I am truly glad to have now met his acquaintance.Silence like the Boy Friend features Jack Till, retired homicide dick and current private eye. It is a tale of secrets, some of them Jack's. But the biggest secrets belong to Wendy Harper, a young restauranteur Till taught how to make herself invisible after an attack by a murderous couple was foiled by chance. And so invisible she has become that when her former partner and lover is suddenly charged with her murder after an anonymous tip leads police to a bloody baseball bat and piece of a blouse buried in his back yard. Knowing that Harper is alive and why she disappeared Till confronts a skeptical young prosecutor. When that idea fails he sets off to find the woman he taught how to hide in plain sight.Close on his heels are the sociopathic couple who unsuccessfully attacked her in the first place. Soon enough bodies begin to pile up in their wake. After Till retrieves her the carnage gets worse.Thomas Perry's villains, and they are not limited to the couple, are all narcissists. Although all sociopaths are narcissists, not all narcissists are sociopaths. This is true in this series as well. However, as they say at the ball park, you can't tell the players without a scorecard. In the Till series, the best approach to solving this caper is to look at the characters for evidence of narcissistic behavior. It will put you on the right track.

I like story line of the book. When Jack took on the case of helping Wendy flee country for her safety. I wish the book would have gone into more depth of Jacks history. I don't understand how the police can just put a man in jail for murder with no body, no weapon with his finger prints and other hard evidence. The story line stayed on a very interesting pace making you want to find out about Sylvie and Paul.You never really found out why the bad guys fought so hard to see that Wendy had to be killed. I like the ending even though I would have preferred a more exciting ending instead of Paul and Sylvie planning how to get get of the other. I would consider reading more of Thomas Perry's books.

If I hadn't already read Thomas Perry's "Butcher's Boy" in the 80's (and loved it!), I wouldn't have been so prepared for the spastic silliness of this book, intertwined with lots of really nasty, violent people. In other hands, the juxtaposition of strange and comical characters with murder drama is a disaster (I'm thinking of Martha Grimes). In Silence, we have Wendy Harper, who is on the run from a shadowy bad guy who clearly wants her dead. So, with the help of nicely written retired-policeman-turned-PI Jack Till, she disappears. In order to fully protect her, he ensures that even he doesn't know where to find her. But six years later, Eric, her former partner in life and business, is charged with her murder and Jack must try to find her. Of course, Eric has been framed and the ultimate goal is to smoke Wendy out of hiding. And waiting for her is the wackiest pair of tango-dancing assassins you could ever imagine. We need a new word because narcissism doesn't even begin to describe these two.And so we start off on a cross-country chase with the bad people aided and abetted by the rental car companies' vehicle tracking devices! The body count in any Thomas Perry book is unreal and the close calls mount up like chain reactions but the characters make up for the story flaws and serial coincidences.This is not my usual fare but it is a short book, quick read, diverting detour!

All the characters in his books are fascinating, completely drawn human beings, even the worst of them. The mystery and adventure are great, but it's the people telling the story that make it all worth reading. No pasteboard characters here.

Mr. Perry's latest put me in mind of the great (part) Native American dissappearance artist he has written so much about. Since I REALLY miss her it was a welcome part of the plot. A former cop, now private detective, helps a woman hide herself from a murdering music executive (who knew?)who kills her friend by accident. When her old boyfriend and ex-business partner gets accused of murdering her (a dastardly ploy to bring her out of hiding), the PI has a case of conscience (and the hots) and goes looking for her. Well, he convinces her to come back to give evidence that she is not dead to free the old boyfriend. Cue the assassins, who try to kill her and the PI at every turn. This is one of Mr. Perry's rich and varied character driven plots and you get to see into the psyches of all involved, which is what drives the book. From an insecure (and deranged) ex-porn star now assassin wife to an assassin husband team of two, to the really sociopathic music exec ("prince of darkness"), and the lonely ex-cop, this is a page turner! A must read.

Thomas Perry is a fantastic writer. I've read all of his books thus far and I've never been disappointed. There's always a great deal of suspense and quick paced action in all of his books. The "Butcher's Boy" is the one that originally got me started reading his novels.