Thomas Perry

Thomas Perry’s titles have become, to put it kindly, less distinctive over the years – compare the latest, Silence, and the recent Nightlife and Pursuit to Metzger’s Dog or The Face-changers – but the books keep getting better and better. And they were awfully good to begin with.

Is there a better pure thriller writer working today? Perry can wring more suspense out of a pre-dawn taxi ride to the airport than most thriller writers could manage with a serial killer loosed on the Vatican with a suitcase nuke on Easter Sunday.

Ever since reading Big Fish back in the early eighties, I’ve considered his books to be like smarter, leaner, domestic versions of the type of tale the Ludlums and Forsythes were slinging, and thought that, in a just world, he would have the kind of career the reading public and Hollywood granted (say) John Grisham instead.

For a time, I thought Perry agreed with me – leaving behind the stand-alones for a series character, a sure sign that a writer is looking to relax a bit, find a formula people like, coast for a while. Right?

Not Perry. The Jane Whitefield books are pretty much the only series I’ve read without a sense of diminishing returns. And he quit Jane after five books, to return to the stand-alone.

Maybe the time is ripe for Perry to become an overnight sensation – the blockbusterish titles are in place, the paperback of Nightlife is showing up in the supermarket racks. I’d love to see some capable creative team, inspired by the Bourne franchise, turn the Jane Whitefield books into movies.

Meanwhile, Silence has been out for a couple weeks now, and I haven’t picked it up yet. The suspense is nearly killing me, but I’m going to wait just a little while longer.