A Small Town

October 21, 2019
At the start of this uneven thriller from bestseller Perry (The Burglar), a thousand inmates break out from a high security federal correctional facility in rural Colorado. They rampage through nearby Weldonville, causing widespread death and destruction. While most of the escapees are quickly recaptured, after a two-year manhunt the 12 inmates who orchestrated the breakout remain at large. Weldonville Det. Leah Hawkins, whose lover was killed in the violence, sets out with the secret backing of city officials to track down and kill the ringleaders. Despite the previous best efforts of hundreds of FBI agents, Leah nonetheless quickly manages to locate and kill six of them, at which point the surviving fugitives, realizing what’s happening, counterattack from their refuge in an Arkansas survivalist camp. The dramatic setup fails to compensate for two-dimensional characters, especially Leah, and often perfunctory action. In addition, the author misses the chance to consider such larger questions as the morality of Leah’s vigilante killings. Edgar-winner Perry has done better. Agent: Mel Berger, WME.

November 1, 2019
Perry's large-scale update of The Bride Wore Black stars a small-town cop who's paid $1 million to track down and kill the 12 inmates who organized and spearheaded a massive prison break. Two years after a diabolically plotted escape from the local prison loosed hundreds of inmates in the little town of Weldonville to rob, rape, and kill before most of them were re-arrested, the verdict is clear: "They murdered Weldonville." The place has never recovered from the trauma of the breakout and its aftermath; nearly everyone knows someone who was murdered or widowed that night, and no good news has arrived to counterbalance the memories. So the town council comes up with a plan that's novel, neat, and logical: Take $1 million in grant money that's been given to rebuild the town and make it all available to Detective. Lt. Leah Hawkins, a local who's ostensibly taking a leave of absence to brush up on state-of-the-art police procedure but who's actually being asked, if not exactly authorized, to find the ringleaders, scattered across the country, and visit summary justice on them. Once this germ has been planted, the story virtually writes itself. Following the best leads she can find, Leah travels to Florida or Buffalo or California, waits patiently for the escapee at the top of her list to show his face, and then executes him. Though it's deeply satisfying to see the first few ex-cons get their just deserts, Perry (The Burglar, 2019, etc.) is too wily a pro to follow Leah passively down the list. Careful as she is to avoid creating the kind of publicity that would alert the other escapees to their peril, some of them get wind of her vendetta, putting them on high alert and eventually encouraging them to take arms against her themselves. A superior live-action version of the Road Runner cartoons with 12 coyotes and noncartoon violence.

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Starred review from December 1, 2019
Readers expecting Perry's latest to be another of the author's superb comic caper novels are in for a big surprise. This is Perry in no-holds-barred action-thriller mode. It starts with a stomach-churning set piece in which a thousand inmates at a federal prison in Colorado stage an audacious escape and then, as a diversion, pretty much destroy?methodically but with sadistic glee?the nearby small town of Weldonville, raping, murdering, and pillaging at will. Set on revenge, the surviving city officials hire (off the books) one of the local cops, Leah Hawkins, to track the 12 ringleaders and kill them all. Hawkins is a skilled cop but hardly an assassin; still, she learns fast, and with the ruthless cunning of Jack Reacher, she works her way down the list. However, the escapees remaining are every bit as cunning and far more ruthless than Hawkins and stage a counterattack on the town. Perry has written many fine non-comic thrillers, but, typically, they have involved the heroes being chased; here he switches it up, focusing on the hunter, and the result is no less gripping. Hawkins is a full-bodied, multifaceted creation, awash in moral ambiguity but determined to exact her multiple pounds of flesh. And the finale?townies versus evil invaders?is cathartic, with all the archetypal power of The Wild Bunch. The ever-versatile Perry shines yet again.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)