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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780804113878
ISBN number: 0804113874
Label: Fawcett
Manufacturer: Fawcett
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: March 02, 1996
Publishing house: Fawcett
Release Date: March 02, 1996
Sale Popularity Level: 76204
Studio: Fawcett
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Praised by critics, a thriller by an Edgar Award-winning author stars a Native American woman who uses ancient wisdom and modern street smarts to help fugitives cover their trails and begin new lives. Reprint. NYT.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
Jane Whitefield, half-Seneca, all original, is a "guide" -- and not in the spiritual sense, either. She runs a sort of private Witness Protection Program, helping deserving individuals who are on the run to drop out of the world. Many of them are the wives of powerful and abusive men, or targets of gangland violence they don't deserve. John Felker is an ex-cop turned accountant who is being set up for reasons unknown by persons unknown, and he known enough about the way things work to understand that there's no way he's ever going to prove his innocence. He found out about Jane from one of her previous "clients" (though she doesn't actually charge for her services) and has come to her for help. She gets him squared away, after an interlude on a reservation in Canada (which is quite fascinating). But she's barely returned home when things begin to happen that make it clear she's made a dreadful error in judgment. Perry has done a great deal of research for this unusually, highly original novel and he develops his characters very well indeed. The closing section, which is brilliant and gripping, is set in the North Woods, and could have taken place two centuries ago. A marvelous book.
Rated by buyers 
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A couple of years ago, I read a novel called PURSUIT, which was one of the finest cat-and-mouse thrillers I've ever read. The author who wrote the book, Thomas Perry, is probably best known for his Jane Whitfield series, which involves a woman who helps people "disappear" from their enemies. VANISHING ACT is the very first novel in that series, and I found it rather disappointing.
VANISHING ACT has a great concept, and a very strong beginning. Unfortunately, Perry's plot ultimately becomes quite convoluted, with so many digressions that it prevents the story from attaining any true narrative drive. Perry's a strong writer, but his writing style is long-winded, with too much exposition and detail in this book for its own good. The plot is also quite thin and predictable, with a twist that most readers will spot far in advance.
Many of Perry's fans seem to admire the Whitfield series, and Perry plans on producing another Whitfield novel in 2009, after a long hiatus. I'm guessing this series probably improves with later installments, but I'm in no hurry to try any new Jane Whitfield books after reading this one.
Rated by buyers 
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Perry manages to continiue to surprise you in the different ways he has Jane do some very tricky things to keep her friend and herself alive. Jane uses all her innate wisdom and makes use of most of her contacts to make everything turn out for the best.
Rated by buyers -
While learning some interesting facts ("Adirondacks" is Iroquois for "bark-eaters," a derogatory term for ineffective hunters, and George Washington ordered assorted massacres of Indian villages), I found this novel consistently engaging. The reviews suggesting the heroine's "gullibility" forget the difference between reading a novel and living an experience. Perry isn't interested in tricking his readers, but inviting them to see and experience the world as his heroine does. All in all, she's quicker to figure out the shape of a complex story than that reviewer would have been, and this novel's merits don't depend on "figuring it out" anyway. If a mythic heroince can be credible, this one is.
Rated by buyers -
Vanishing Act is the very first in a series of five books about Jane Whitefield, an Indian guide who will take someone from where there are people who want to kill them -- to where they are safe. She provides people with a new identity and a new life. John Felker is looking for just that. He is a former cop turned accountant who is being set up as an embezzler. Someone is skimming money from the accounting firm's customers and depositing it into an account in John's name. There is also an open contract on his life, so he needs to disappear.
The book is written in two distinctly separate parts. The very first part is about how Jane makes someone disappear. We follow Jane and John cross country as they are being chased by the men who are after John. We are introduced to people along the way who help make their escape possible by providing safe places to stay or creating fake documentation or getting them transportation. When Jane finally gets John safe, the story takes a new twist. The people we have met along their journey are being murdered. Someone has been tracking them and Jane fears for John's safety. She has to go back to save him before the killers find him too.
The Native American culture and history were very interesting. Jane uses her training and skills in tracking and in creating weapons from items she finds in the woods. I thought of a few questions along the way that I wanted answers to and was a bit disappointed when those answers, found late in the book, would have cleared everything up quite early. Surely Jane is better at this than I am and should have asked them herself. But then we wouldn't have had a story, right?
Armchair Interviews says: Definitely pick Vanishing Act and up the subsequent one in this unique series.
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