Runner (Jane Whitefield Book 6)
$4.99
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The New York Times bestselling author “blend[s] the frenetic pacing of a top-notch thriller with Native American mysticism” in Jane Whitefield’s return (Publishers Weekly).
“The world’s foremost specialist in hiding fugitives from their pursuers is back with a vengeance” in this “high-potency thriller” (Kirkus Reviews).
For more than a decade, Jane Whitefield practiced her unusual profession: “I’m a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is.” Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of guns-for-hire. That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she’s made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner. Her quest for safety sets in motion a mission that may be as much of a rescue operation as it is a chance for revenge.
“Readers who have been clamoring for the return of Thomas Perry’s most popular heroine can stop waiting. After a nine-year absence, Jane Whitefield is back.”—The Associated Press
“A first-class thriller and the welcome return of an outstanding series.”—Booklist (starred review)
ASIN : B003K15IMQ
Publisher : Mariner Books
Accessibility : Learn more
Publication date : June 11, 2020
Edition : First
Language : English
File size : 1.8 MB
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 449 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-0547415956
Page Flip : Enabled
Grade level : 7 – 12
Book 6 of 9 : Jane Whitefield
Reading age : 12 – 18 years
Best Sellers Rank: #79,181 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store) #116 in Indigenous Literature & Fiction eBooks #175 in Native American Literature (Kindle Store) #533 in Women’s Adventure Fiction (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,924 ratings var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Becky –
melancholy
So many ups and downs and twists. It was exciting and sad. Still well written and worth reading. But it certainly leaves you a bit uncomfortable.
Julia Walker –
not so fast
I came late to the Jane Whitefield series, reading them all last spring, then waiting with bated breath for this newest installment. If I had started with RUNNER, I’m sure I would have liked it better, but it does seem pale in comparison with the earlier novels.Jane Whitefield has a calling: she guides people out of the world. If your rich and abusive husband is going to kill you if you leave him, Jane will help you vanish. If the Mafia is on your trail and the Witness Protection Program isn’t enough, Jane will give you a new life. Through a combination of physical courage that borders on derring-do and hyper-vigilance, Jane guides the runner through the stages of a vanishing act: new identity and location for transition, another set of realities for the long haul. To make this possible, Jane consults the stars of the underground identity culture – forgers, photographers, bent math whizzes –and she grows identities of her own through a variety of clever strategies.The well-worn birth-certificate-of-a-dead-kid ploy is way too elementary for Jane Whitefield. If you like heist stories, the prep work she puts into identity-growing will fascinate you. And the real pay-off is this: she does it for good, not for money. Jane doesn’t charge her runners. If they have money, she will use it to help them. If they later access money, they often send her a thank-you check. But it’s all for the calling, nothing for personal gain. She says she does the work because 1) she is able to do it and 2) it needs to be done.This very moral stance is somewhat under-cut by the increasing physical violence of the series. Jane racks up a high body count. The implicit rationale for this is that Seneca warriors protect their families. But Jane never says “no” to a runner, so this very elastic definition of family seems a bit facile. But most ethical male heroes slay their tens of thousands – Spenser comes immediately to mind – so I’m not losing sleep over Jane’s corpses. They are all bad people doing things they shouldn’t be doing. And – unlike many male heroes – Jane never overlooks her failures. We hear again and again about the mistakes she has made and the lives she has lost and this keeps things real. Perry realizes that the possibility of failure raises the level of tension 1000 per cent.Perry’s ability to write a convincing woman hero is very impressive. He ignores all the little things that trip men up – everyday grooming unrelated to disguises, for example – and pays shrewd attention to the way the world assesses women. (Nor is this a one-off feat. Read Nightlife for two amazing women, serial killer and detective.)And the Seneca material is pure gold.My favorite thing to find in mystery novels is a new world – art, national parks, Wall Street, computer security, archeology, obscure corners of the academy. Perry gives his readers fabulous chunks of Seneca history and culture, from big-picture contexts to the details of fingernail clippings. The Seneca traditions and culture add a huge dimension to the series and much of the raison d’être for Jane’s actions. We meet other Seneca women and men, visit reservations, learn about tribal traditions which make Jane’s choices not only believable, but virtually inevitable. And the author’s sense of setting is phenomenal. In the first novel, I tracked Jane through the Adirondacks on Google Earth using Perry’s vivid (and accurate) descriptions of place. This is an A+ series on almost every level. I just wish there were more novels.That said, Runner was a disappointment. The post-9/11 security requirements pose a huge problem for Perry, who has Jane jumping on and off planes as if they were London busses in the earlier books. Obviously that has to cease, but it’s puzzling that Perry didn’t give the Homeland Security topic more play, instead making Jane shy away from airports because so many people are looking for her.While there’s a glam about 10 planes in one day, the book need not have suffered if Perry had given us something else. But we don’t get details about Jane’s drives, not after the first run with Christine. Similarly, the minutiae of setting up a new life for someone is always fascinating, but here it’s merely summarized, not detailed for the reader’s enjoyment. The sense of place I loved so much in the first five books has been misplaced here. The Seneca material is only very lightly sketched, as is the character of the runner, and the motivation of the bad guys is barely credible.Every author has an off day, and this is still a good read. If you are new to the series, comfort yourself that going back to the first five books will be even better.
Mike Nemeth –
A girl, a bomb and the chase begins
Jane Whitefield had a pretty good new life. She raises copious amounts of money for the hospital in which her surgeon husband works, and acts as though she bears not a shred of resemblance to the woman she was when she spirited away those who needed to hide from something that threatened their lives. But all that changes in “Runner,” the sixth in the explosively action-packed series by Thomas Perry. Jane encounters a young woman who had been admitted to the hospital. The woman knew only Jane’s first name. She’d been told of her existence by a teacher, who she knew as Sharon. But Jane has promised her husband she was done with the life of helping others. She realizes she has to help the woman, who is pregnant and terrified. She has to put her life at risk because six people have gone to great length to capture the woman. Jane tries to instill in the runner what she can and can’t do. She can’t make mistakes. Those who do get caught or killed. The young woman isn’t the smartest. She’s not prepared. She makes Jane’s job more difficult and Jane, as a result, must take risks. Perry keeps the adrenaline pumping throughout through one encounter after another.
J G Thomas –
Thoroughly enjoyable…
And believable. I found Jane’s desire to have a baby very understandable considering the author informs us it has been five years since Jane had worked with her last runner. Easy enough to imagine that the interval has enabled Jane the time to feel firmly settled into her marriage with Carey and that relationship naturally evolving toward parenthood.Great plot, action, character development, as usual in this series.
S. McGee –
Jane Whitefield is back!
Jane McKinnon has been leading a calm and quiet life for the last five years (fictional years, that is; it has been nine “real” years since her last outing in one of Perry’s books). As the wife of a Buffalo, NY surgeon, she has spent most of that time doing volunteer work – and hoping to start a family. She’s struggling with the fact that hasn’t happened when a series of (literally) explosive events forces her back into a life she thought she had left behind: as Jane Whitefield, half-Seneca Indian and a guide of sorts for individuals in danger who need to abandon their lives and `vanish’ from the world they inhabit.The current runner referred to in the title is Christine, a naïve 20-year-old who, after discovering she is pregnant, flees her abusive and much older boyfriend and boss. Partly because he wants her back and partly out of fear that she’ll disclose his less-than-legal professional doings, Richard has sent a six-person team in pursuit of Christine as she, in turn, tries to reach Jane; a woman, she has been told, who can keep her safe. Times have changed since Jane returned from her last adventures, taking “people from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody” threatens them. Post 9/11, it’s harder to travel on false documents or even obtain them — and besides, Jane had promised her husband not to venture into danger again. But something about the young girl — perhaps her pregnancy, of which Jane struggles in vain not to be envious — persuades her to take her to safety, despite the risk that this will upset her own peaceful life.I’m a big fan of Perry’s Jane Whitefield series, which is one reason I have celebrated her return as a character with this four-star rating. Still, in a number of ways, this latest episode isn’t as compelling as his earlier books, such as Vanishing Act (Jane Whitfield Novel) and The Face-Changers (Jane Whitefield Novels). Perhaps the problem is that there are only so many plot devices available to Perry; a finite number of options for the “pursuit & escape” narrative that these novels rely on. Most of the readers who have devoured Jane Whitefield’s previous adventures by now are very familiar with a lot of the steps she takes, from “growing” new identities to having her runners cut off their ties to their past lives. Even many of the suspenseful chase scenes end up feeling somewhat repetitive. It’s not that these elements are clumsily handled, but more that the feel somewhat repetitive to anyone who has read and re-read the previous books. Often, reading this felt a bit like re-reading a favourite novel; one that you are so familiar with that you know what is going to happen next when you turn the page or roughly what Jane will do or say next. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – after all, we all tend to re-read our favorite books until we know them that well. Still, it’s a constraint that Perry will encounter increasingly if he chooses to continue the Whitefield saga.Another minor weakness that prevents me giving this book a five-star rating is that the book doesn’t have as many complex plot twists as Jane’s previous adventures. In Runner, the reader learns relatively early on who is after Christine and why, so the suspense revolves around what happens — and it’s pretty straightforward. Christine’s problem is an abusive boyfriend who, for reasons of his own, doesn’t want her to escape his clutches. The only real twist involves Richard’s parents, who, for reasons of their own, have a compelling interest in Christine’s soon-to-be-born child. The “what” is still a good suspense narrative, but in past books in the series, the “who” and “why” have been more fully developed.Another element I missed in Runner were Perry’s insights in the real lives of today’s Iroquois and Seneca, often a feature of the previous thrillers. In this, with a few exceptions (such as Jane’s dream sequences), her Seneca identity is almost incidental to the plot.Jane hasn’t lost her edge, however, and the cluster of characters who surround her (from the forger and the bounty hunter who recognizes her in an airport, to the ghost of a dead `runner’ she accidentally betrayed) are as intriguing and wacky as ever. The book is still a good, suspenseful read — perfect for that long airplane flight or the snowy winter day when you want something to grab your attention — but those who haven’t encountered Jane Whitefield before are likely to get the most out of it. This is a good enough yarn to persuade any of them to pick up her earlier adventures. And each of which is easily, hands-down, a five-start suspense novel that I could recommend without any of the reservations I have about this one.
artonaut –
tolle Sprache, toller Plot, lebendige Figuren…Tom Perry gehört zur Spitze der Kriminalautoren
goforit –
I read this book for the first time probably 15 years ago and I enjoyed it so much I made a note of it. This could be my third reading and I still enjoy it. Recommend it highly . Purple Head
Amazon Customer –
Very good story. Page turner. Liked the main character very much.
Francine M –
I purchased the Kindle version of it. I have only read one Jane Whitefield’s adventures before, and it was Shadow Woman (Jane Whitefield Novels). I have enjoyed Runner, it has plenty of action, and you also feel the pression on Jane, as ten years have passed since she helped a runner disappear, times have changed and it is more difficult for her to obtain false identities for herself and the girl she is trying to help. I was a bit sorry to read the other reviews that this book is disappointing, but if like me, you are new to Thomas Perry and the Jane Whitefield’s novels, you will not feel this disappointment.My disappointment though is that the other novels are not available for Kindle, so, I will have to take them out of the Library, and the idea for me to have a Kindle was to have less paper books.
Delta Dawn –
Have all his books. I buy them as soon as they come out each year. Poison Flower is my favourite and the Old Man but Runner is excellent too.