Genealogy and criminal conspiracy

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	• Death Benefits (SIGNED) Thomas Perry Random House, 2001 average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Genealogy and criminal conspiracy

I had to take an unexpected trip recently and someone handed me this book to fill the time. I'd never read anything by Perry before, but now I'm going to be seeking out his earlier work and watching for new ones. It's a thriller that's big on character as well as action, and I'm amazed it hasn't already come out as a movie. John Walker is an analyst in the headquarters of a San Francisco insurance company, a small-ish, old fashioned sort of outfit that competes successfully with the conglomerates by concentrating on service. A young woman, a rising sales person in the Pasadena office with whom he had had a brief relationship eighteen months before, seems to have skipped out in the middle of a $12-million-dollar fraud, and Max Stillman, the company's "security expert," takes Walker along on his investigation. The case, which now includes a murder, is brought to a not very satisfactory conclusion less than halfway through the book -- obviously, there's more to come. Walker is sent off to the company's Miami office to help out in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane, where he stumbles upon a very similar scam and hollers for help. Stillman quickly arrives in Miami and the chase is on again -- and Perry brings new meaning to the phrase "criminal conspiracy." Along the way, Walker gets involved with a young female hacker whose boss supplies Stillman with illegally obtained information for his work, and she gets caught up in the massive fraud case as well. All three principal characters are nicely developed, with Walker becoming less innocent and more active as he learns from Stillman, and the details of the insurance business and how ingenious insurance fraud can be are interesting as well. The puzzle takes awhile to solve, . . . and I think I'll just stay the heck away from little New Hampshire towns.

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Death Benefits by Thomas Perry

This was a good read. It wasn't a story in which you could predict what was going to happen. I enjoyed it. I also liked the Jane Whitefield novels by this author.

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Shockingly good

I have been gobbling up Thomas Perry novels ever since discovering his Jane Whitfield series, so I only glanced at the cover when I picked this one up from the bin. I have to confess I was let down when I saw that it was about the insurance industry--what could be more boring? But "boring" is exactly the wrong word to use to describe this wonderfully exciting novel. I was hooked from the first few pages and just could not put it down. This is one of those suspense thrillers where you love the characters and are so swept up in the story you forget to make dinner for yourself. The disappearance of a woman who looks as if she is involved in a scheme to peculate millions leads a former lover on a quest to uncover her fate, and he soon finds himself embroiled in a deep conspiracy. This is believable, a book about greed and love, that will fascinate you.

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Implausible, esp. for Mr. Perry

The first half of "Death Benefits" is much better than the second. Unfortunately, a great character, special security consultant Max Stillman, unaccountably becomes stupid in the final third of the book. He's way ahead of the main protagonist, John Walker, and the readers in the first part of the book, then way behind both Walker and the readers in the last part. I knew what was going on in the town Walker and Stillman were investigating 100 pages before they figured it out. Case in point, when Stillman and Walker saw that the local police department -- serving a tiny hamlet of around 400 people -- had something like 18 police cruisers and a professionally staffed police department, they only thought it mildly interesting. (In reality, a town of this size would likely have one cruiser, maybe two cops tops, and they'd likely be of the minimum-wage lifer variety.) The other problem is that somehow Stillman, a professional security consultant, Walker, an insurance analyst helping Stillman, and a gonzo computer hacker accompanying them, somehow went out on an investigation without anyone carrying a cell phone.

No, I'm sorry, I love Thomas Perry's work usually, but this one badly fell apart about halfway in.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

When gruff and intimidating security consultant Max Stillman appears without warning in the San Francisco office of McClaren Life and Casualty and begins asking questions and scrutinizing files, the employees can't help wondering just which of them he's been hired to investigate. The first to find out is young data analyst John Walker when Stillman's mysterious investigation leads out of town, he announces he's taking Walker with him.

Walker has been picked because a colleague with whom he once had a love affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor. Since Walker knew her intimately, Stillman believes he's likely to be useful in finding and convicting her. But because he knows her so well, Walker is convinced that she is innocent, and that he must join the pursuit so that he can defend her. These conflicting purposes unite Walker and Stillman in an urgent search that propels them across the country and into unexpected dangers. The trail ends in a deceptively peaceful corner of the New Hampshire countryside, where they find themselves trapped by a deadly conspiracy that's much bigger, older, and more evil than they could ever have imagined.

Martin Cruz Smith declared a previous Perry novel as beautifully crafted as a good automatic weapon. In Death Benefits, Perry gives us another stunning suspense story with writing that is, as the Los Angeles Times said, as sharp as a sushi knife.

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