Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Pg. 69/99: Thomas Perry's "Fidelity"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Thomas Perry's Fidelity.

About the novel:
When Phil Kramer is shot dead on a deserted suburban street in the middle of the night, his wife, Emily, is left with an emptied bank account and a lot of questions. How could Phil leave her penniless? What was he going to do with the money? And, most of all, who was he if he wasn’t the man she thought she married?

Jerry Hobart has some questions of his own. It’s none of his business why he was hired to kill Phil Kramer. But now that he’s been ordered to take out Kramer’s widow, he figures there’s a bigger secret at work—and maybe a bigger payoff.

As they race to find the secret that Phil Kramer so masterfully hid, both Hobart and Emily must question where their true loyalties lie and how much they owe those who have been unfaithful to them. In Fidelity, Thomas Perry delivers another riveting thriller.
Among the early praise for Fidelity:
"Perry intrigues as always with spare, intelligent prose."
--Publishers Weekly

"In this high-energy thriller, Emily Kramer tries to find out why her husband, Phil, was shot dead and discovers he'd been keeping secrets from her. Jerry Hobart completed his contract killing of Phil Kramer, but now his employer wants Phil's wife dead as well; Jerry decides he can instead make more money finding out what his employer is hiding. And rich, successful Ted Forrest likes young women-really young women. This predisposition got him into trouble once before, and he's not going to let it happen again. A virtue of Edgar Award winner Perry's (Silence) novel is that the bad guy draws you in. You can't dismiss Jerry as simply evil-he kills ruthlessly but not needlessly; his heart aches for a lost past, and he admires the woman he's paid to kill. A spunky but believable heroine, an emotionally conflicted killer, a plot whose twists you will not anticipate-what more could a reader want from a piece of escapist fiction? Fidelity is a winner. But, then, Perry has never written a bad novel in his life."
--David Keymer, Library Journal (starred review)

"Fidelity… rivets attention, races fast and displays distinctive Perry hallmarks, especially in its standoffs. His characters are uncannily good at sizing one another up and anticipating what the next moves will be. Though he briefly equates Hobart's tactics to the ways a coyote slinks through a neighborhood, Mr. Perry need not even articulate this. It’s always built into his storytelling, and it's already on the page."
--Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Perry remains a kind of literary alchemist, able to mix often-incompatible elements, intricate plotting and subtle characterization, into crime-fiction gold. . . This is fine writing from one of crime fiction's grand masters."
--Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)
Read an excerpt from Fidelity, and learn more about the author and his work at Thomas Perry's website.

Thomas Perry is the author of sixteen novels, including the Jane Whitefield series as well as the bestselling novels Nightlife, Death Benefits, and Pursuit. He is the first recipient of the Gumshoe Award for Best Novel, and he won an Edgar Award for The Butcher’s Boy.

The Page 69 Test: Silence.

The Page 99 Test: Nightlife.

Writers Read: Thomas Perry.

The Page 69/99 Test: Fidelity.

--Marshal Zeringue