Shadow Woman

Reviewed by: Henry E. Neufeld

Perry, Thomas; Shadow Woman: A Jane Whitefield Novel, New York: Random House, 1997

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This review could have begun with any of the Jane Whitefield novels, but I don't intend to review all of them. In Jane Whitefield, Thomas Perry has created an exceptionally interesting and capable female character. I find that capable, well-portrayed female lead characters are very rare in literature. One either gets the actions and thoughts of a man with a comment or two thrown in to reassure you that the character is indeed a woman, or one gets a character who is weak and incompetent. I realize that I exaggerate, but I do so in pleasure at Jane Whitefield as a character.

My local public library has this book labelled as a mystery, but it is really much more of a suspense novel. It is not that the work of detection is done poorly--indeed it is very good--but the reader knows to much to be puzzling over the mystery. One is merely wondering what will happen next and how the characters will figure out what is going on.

In Shadow Woman we find Jane Whitefield planning to retire and get married. She successfully gets married, but the retirement is a problem. The last person she has helped is in danger again, and his message calls her away from domestic tranquility and back into action. She is provided with plausible, capable opponents. As is usual in the Jane Whitefield novels she doesn't make serious mistakes that would be obvious to anyone at that point in the plot, thus getting herself into trouble. She is caught by the ingenuity of her opponents from time to time, and succeeds by being smarter and better than they are.

This book is an excellent read. I recommend it to lovers of suspense and detective fiction wholeheartedly.

350 pages.

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