Jane Whitefield, the ingenious Native American heroine of the celebrated novel Vanishing Act, returns in Dance for the Dead to pursue her unusual profession. She helps people disappear by creating new identities for them -- identities that prevent them from being discovered by their enemies. But this time she must fight for the lives of two people who have lived under false pretenses for years.
The first is an innocent child: It is only after eight-year-old Timmy Decker's parents are brutally murdered that he learns they were not his parents at all; they were, in fact, his kidnappers. Timmy Decker is declared to be Timmy Phillips -- and he becomes the prize in a violent struggle in which faceless strangers vie for control of the enormous trust fund Timmy never knew he had.
The second fugitive is neither innocent nor a child: Mary Perkins admits she served time for defrauding S&Us during the 1980s, but she is evasive about her current predicament. Jane is sure of only one thing: Violent men are searching for Mary Perkins, and they will not give up until they find her.
As Jane uses her wits to preserve the lives of her two charges, she begins to suspect that what she faces is not two unrelated cases but a contest with a single cunning enemy -- a vicious predator who becomes more terrifying and powerful with each kill.
Edgar -- winning writer Thomas Perry surpasses himself with Dance for the Dead, giving us a superb thriller in which the fiercely intelligent, wildly resourceful Jane Whitefield confronts the most frightening adversary of her life.
The first is an innocent child: It is only after eight-year-old Timmy Decker's parents are brutally murdered that he learns they were not his parents at all; they were, in fact, his kidnappers. Timmy Decker is declared to be Timmy Phillips -- and he becomes the prize in a violent struggle in which faceless strangers vie for control of the enormous trust fund Timmy never knew he had.
The second fugitive is neither innocent nor a child: Mary Perkins admits she served time for defrauding S&Us during the 1980s, but she is evasive about her current predicament. Jane is sure of only one thing: Violent men are searching for Mary Perkins, and they will not give up until they find her.
As Jane uses her wits to preserve the lives of her two charges, she begins to suspect that what she faces is not two unrelated cases but a contest with a single cunning enemy -- a vicious predator who becomes more terrifying and powerful with each kill.
Edgar -- winning writer Thomas Perry surpasses himself with Dance for the Dead, giving us a superb thriller in which the fiercely intelligent, wildly resourceful Jane Whitefield confronts the most frightening adversary of her life.
