To All, Book review, suspense: Thomas Perry is back. Mr. Perry started his career writing extraordinary books such as The Butcher's Boy, Metzger's Dog and Sleeping Dogs. He went off course a bit, IMHO, with Island and Big Fish, but he was trying something different and they were still good books, just not great. I didn't mind if he experimented because he was young and there would be more good books coming out of him over the decades. I figured. Wrong. One of the worst things in the world happened to him instead: He hit it big with a series and the series was mediocre, despite one of the books being named One of the Hundred Favorite Mysteries of the Century by folks who have no taste. With sales guaranteed and the critics out to lunch, he cranked out 4 or 5 very forgetable suspense novels.
Well, just when I thought he had gone to series Lobotomy land forever, Perry produced a dandy book called Death Benefits. This one has it all. A big bucks crime. A naive insurance co. statistician thrown into the hard knocks world of sleuthing. A tough as nails former cop who breaks every rule in the books on his piece work cases. Sexy women. Snappy dialogue. A hurricane. Lots of murders.
So, Thomas Perry is back for at least one book. I hope he ignores the sirens calls and keeps writing the good stuff. So he starves a little. <g> |
