Jane Whitefield McKinnon's latest mission to hide a fugitive from violence puts herself squarely in the sights of Russia's fearsome Brotherhood. Sara Doughton had four good years with Los Angeles errand boy/arranger/skimmer Albert McKeith. Every night he'd take her to another party, sometimes more than one, for which he'd provided champagne or drugs or women, then take her home to bed. When Albert realized that Sara's attention had wandered to a singer's promoter, though, he shot the promoter dead in front of her. Charged as an accessory, she turned state's evidence and testified against Albert. Now he's beaten the rap and is gunning for her. Even though she hasn't helped a runner disappear since she was kidnapped herself, Jane agrees to leave her long-suffering physician husband behind once more and help Sara vanish. She's full of practical advice about what to change and how to think, and she's so successful that Albert, who's tracked Sara to Jane's hometown of Amherst, New York, only to recognize that now he's up against someone way out of his league, asks a well-connected acquaintance to set him up with someone who's better at this sort of thing. The someone turns out to be Oleg Porchen of the Bratva, who swiftly realizes that Sara's guide is much more valuable than the woman she's helping and promptly deploys serious human resources to track her down and bring her in. Porchen's dead-eyed professionalism is matched only by Perry's: An extended pursuit through the Hundred Mile Wilderness of the Appalachian Trail is particularly nail-biting. Hits the ground running and never lets up. Be sure to take a few deep breaths before plunging in. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

After a string of stellar stand-alones, Perry returns to his always-satisfying Jane Whitefield series (following Poison Flower, 2012), starring a Native American woman with a totally under-the-radar occupation: she disappears people whose lives are in danger. Jane has been trying to retire for years, but "runners" keep turning up on her doorstep in upstate New York, directed there by one of Jane's many contacts. So it is this time, when a young L.A. woman, Sara, appears, desperate to escape her former boyfriend, against whom she testified in a murder trial. Unfortunately, the boyfriend, now out of prison, has help of his own: Russian mobsters who are mainly interested in getting Jane to reveal the names of her previous runners and then selling that information to the highest bidders. As always in the series, Perry seasons the fast-moving chase narrative with engrossing details about becoming a new person, from constructing a false identity to relearning how to move through daily life in an unrecognizable way. This time, though, there is a stunning extra: with the mobsters closing in, Jane hopes to lose her pursuers by hiking Maine's Hundred-Mile Wilderness, the most arduous stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Cue the ever-versatile Perry to display his outdoor-adventure-writing chops. Not only is the 100-mile chase itself excruciatingly exciting, it's also chockablock with "I-didn't-know-that!" facts about trail survival. Another stunner from a modern master.

At the start of Edgar winner Perry's engrossing eighth Jane Whitefield novel (after 2015's A String of Beads), Jane, a Native American guide who specializes in helping people in trouble disappear, finds a stranger, Sara Doughton, waiting for her one night in the Amherst, N.Y., house Jane shares with her new husband, surgeon Carey McKinnon. When Sara explains she's fled L.A. to escape a murderous former boyfriend bent on revenge, Jane agrees to help. Meanwhile, the ex-boyfriend enlists the aid of some Russian criminals, who soon take an interest in Jane. After relocating Sara in Boston with a new identity, Jane attempts to lose her pursuers in Maine on the Appalachian Trail. Utilizing wisdom from her Seneca ancestors and some bad-ass survival skills, Jane matches wits with a gang of elite killers. Though a few sequences strain credibility, Perry delivers nonstop action, relentless tension, and such three-dimensional secondary characters as the female thief Magda. Jane's developing relationship with Carey is a plus. Fans will hope they won't have to wait another six years for Jane's next outing. (Nov.)

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear, and her latest client is a young woman from Los Angeles who cheated on her boyfriend, who then made her watch him murder the man with whom she had been involved. Despite her testimony, he was acquitted, and his Russian mafia contacts are trailing her--and Jane. Edgar Award winner Perry's first Jane Whitefield novel in seven years.