Forgotten Books: Have you missed Jane Whitefield?

This week's contribution to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books.

When I started using my current database to keep a record of the books that I had read, the first book I recorded in December 2004 was Thomas Perry's VANISHING ACT.

So do you remember Jane Whitefield?
I haven't read the whole series, but I have learnt that after 9 years, there is to be a 6th title.
Here is the list, courtesy Fantastic Fiction:
1. Vanishing Act (1994)
2. Dance for the Dead (1996)
3. Shadow Woman (1997)
4. The Face-Changers (1998)
5. Blood Money (1999)
6. Runner (2009)

Check information from the author about why he has decided to write another - or rather why he didn't continue with the series 9 years ago.

My mini-reviews: - my apologies if I seem to reveal a little too much of the story. At this stage I was the only audience for my cogitations.
I read all 3 in a week or so, so I must have really loved them!

#1 VANISHING ACT, my rating 4.9
A P.I. is stalking a woman named Rhonda Eckerly in the L.A. airport. Her husband, a wealthy sexual sadist, has hired Jack Killigan to bring her back for the punishment she deserves. Killigan follows her through the airport, waits for her outside the ladies room, then attacks and subdues her en route to the car park. As he attempts to restrain her, Rhonda turns on him, beats him half to death, and cuffs his wrists together. "Rhonda" is, of course, Jane Whitefield (the ladies switched clothes and wigs in the ladies room) hired to protect Rhonda, and help her disappear from her brutal husband. Jane, after explaining to the police that she was assaulted for no reason by Killigan, takes her leave of L.A. to return to her quiet home town in upstate New York, near her Seneca Indian roots. This is just the introduction to this non stop action thriller with a unique female lead.
Jane Whitefield is tall and slender, with olive skin and dark hair that reveal her part Seneca ancestry. She helps other people disappear - to vanish without trace under assumed identities.
One day, an ex-cop accountant named John Felker arrives on Jane's doorstep with an introduction from a former "client" and a big problem. Someone has set him up in an embezzlement scheme, and has now sent hit-men after him. Jane agrees to make him disappear; but no sooner has she helped Felker settle into his new life when everyone involved in the relocation scheme begins to turn up dead. This is the point in the story where things get really exciting, eventually culminating in a duel to the death in the middle of the Adirondacks, an area which the author seems to know intimately.
Almost like an earlier version of Kinsey Milhone?? Jake Reinert is the old guy who lives next door - he has known her all of her life. Lots of detail about Indian legend, folklore and history. I found the connections in the story a bit heavy going and didn't quite understand at first how the bits came together. She is a bit fierce. A thriller rather than a mystery? Although there are plenty of puzzles.

#2 DANCE FOR THE DEAD, my rating 5.0
Instead of solving crimes that have already occurred, Jane Whitefield specializes in preventative action. Usually, this means that she helps people to vanish into new identities before they can be murdered or otherwise harmed.
In this book, she has two clients: one needs to appear, one needs to disappear. The first is a little boy who is the heir to millions of dollars; someone wants him declared legally dead before he can appear in court to collect his inheritance. The other is a crooked female banker who went to jail for S&L fraud. She swears that she hasn't stashed away any money from her previous malfeasances; but someone still thinks she's worth hunting down on the off chance. Jane helps produce the boy and hide the banker before realizing that the cases are linked to a criminal conspiracy of startling proportions.
I really enjoyed this one. Jane comes over as a very human person, but she does commit some horrific murders herself. In this one she promises to marry Carey McKinnon in a year's time.

#3 SHADOW WOMAN. my rating 5.0
When her latest client, a Las Vegas gaming executive who has lost the trust of his criminally-connected bosses, asks for help, Jane Whitefield gets him out of town with a spectacular display of casino magic. Then she keeps her promise, gives up her dangerous trade, marries her loyal doctor, and settles down to live peacefully in upstate New York. As if. Fifty pages into Thomas Perry's third book about Whitefield--who uses a mixture of her Seneca ancestors' wisdom and a lot of modern muscle and computer smarts to make people in danger disappear--her client screws up. Jane's highly developed code of honour makes her leave her bridal bed to rescue him from an eerily psychotic Los Angeles couple who use everything from sex games to attack dogs to track him down.
Jane marries Carey McKinnon and moves to his house.
Really a thriller rather than a mystery. I found the time line of this book a bit unrealistic - she got married almost overnight - Linda and Earl are looking for Hatchett when he has been gone only a few days. However then there are months when Jane and Hatcher are on the run.

From my database: DISSOLUTION, C.J. Sansom

I started using my current database at the end of 2004, and it now has records of well over 500 books. It occurred to me the other day that there is some perfectly good material in that database, just waiting to be used in my blog.

So from time to time, I will use one as the basis of a blog posting.

DISSOLUTION was the first in C. J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series.

Blurb:
It is 1537, a time of revolution that sees the greatest changes in England since 1066. Henry VIII has procliamed himslef the Supreme Head of the Church. The country is waking up to new savage laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers that it has ever seen. Under the orders of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent throughout the country to investigate the monasteries. There can be only one outcome: the monasteries are to be dissolved.
But on the Sussex coast, at the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's commissioner, Robin Singleton, has been found dead, his head severed from his body. His horrific murder is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege - a black cockerel sacrificed on the church altar and the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great relic.
Dr. Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of Reform, has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery and death, accompanied by his loyal assistant Mark. His duty is to uncover the truth behind the dark happenings at Scarnsea.
Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything that he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes..

My comment:
DISSOLUTION is set in a period that I have always found fascinating.
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS became one of my favourite films, and Thomas Cromwell, as portrayed by Leo McKern, an image difficult to dislodge.

Although set 300 years later, this book reminded me a lot of the Brother Cadfael books. I found it a bit slow to start with, but the plot was clever and the characters well drawn. An interesting picture of the turmoil that resulted in Anne Boleyn's execution. At the time of the book, Jane Seymour has just died and Cromwell survives. The impact of the dissolution of the monasteries is well described and Henry VIII's need for them to agree to their own dissolution in the name of Reform gives an interesting perspective.

My rating was 5.0

The series:

1. Dissolution (2003)
2. Dark Fire (2004)
3. Sovereign (2006)
4. Revelation (2008)

DISSOLUTION has been Amazon UK's Amazon UK's Crime fiction the top 100 for 738 days - that's over 2 years. DARK FIRE won the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger in 2005, while REVELATION was shorlisted for the same award in 2008.
SOVEREIGN was shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Award in 2008, and in May 2008 DISSOLUTION and DARK FIRE were both in the Amazon UK Crime Fiction top 10.

So if you are looking for really good crime fiction in a historical setting, here is a series to choose.