Poison Flower, the seventh novel in Thomas Perry’s celebrated Jane Whitefield series, opens as Jane spirits James Shelby, a man unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder, out of the heavily guarded criminal court building in downtown Los Angeles. But the price of Shelby’s freedom is high. Within minutes, men posing as police officers kidnap Jane and, when she tries to escape, shoot her.
Jane’s captors are employees of the man who really killed Shelby’s wife. He believes he won’t be safe until Shelby is dead, and his men will do anything to force Jane to reveal Shelby’s hiding place. But Jane endures their torment, and is willing to die rather than betray Shelby. Jane manages to escape but she is alone, wounded, thousands of miles from home with no money and no identification, hunted by the police as well as her captors. She must rejoin Shelby, reach his sister before the hunters do, and get them both to safety.
In this unrelenting, breathtaking cross-country battle, Jane survives by relying on the traditions of her Seneca ancestors. When at last Jane turns to fight, her enemies face a cunning and ferocious warrior who has one weapon that they don’t.
I’ve read this series starting with Vanishing Act, the first in the series. There is no other way to read this series. If you think each novel is a stand alone story, you will miss so much and probably won’t care very much about this newest entry in the Jane Whitfield series.
I previously reviewed Vanishing Act for Pure Textuality. The first 5 books are some of my very favorite books ever. I’ve re-read them numerous times. The 6th novel, Runner, was not a bad book. It just left me feeling a bit sad.
Poison Flower more than makes up for the sadness. WARNING: There is explicit violence in this novel. However, if you’ve read the series from the beginning, you know that Jane is always up against some pretty sadistic people. She usually gives more than she receives but in Poison Flower, Mr. Perry flips it a bit. Jane is caught by the bad guys and is tortured. How she deals with this, is part of the intriguing storyline of this whole series.
It’s been a revelation reading this series from the very first. When it began, cell phones were not an extension of everyone’s arm, personal computers were just becoming affordable and there certainly were not surveillance cameras everywhere. Mr. Perry has brought this series a long way and incorporates all the changes into the latest two novels. Jane is someone I would love to meet. Yeah, I know she’s not real, but her character is a friend I would like to have in my corner. I have enjoyed many of Mr Perry’s other books also. He doesn’t cater to either men or women, young or old. He’s just, in my opinion, an excellent word craftsman.
My Rating: 4.50 Stars
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