Death Benefits
by Thomas Perry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thomas PerryEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11
ISBN: 0804115427
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Death Benefits
Book Review: Love Perry, However the book sagged by end
Summary: 3 Stars
The basic premise is interesting. The intricacy of the insurance world is explained quite well and John's life is boring. However the problem comes in the third act when Max, John and the new girl with many names are trapped in a town that is evil. Nice twist, an almost unexpected road leading to this final showdown. But here;s the problem Ellen Snyder (assistant manager at the Pasadena branch office of McLaren Life and Casualty, pays out a 12 million dollar death benefit to an imposter and then disappears, company red flags go up all over)a pivotal character dead before any other characters get to interact with her. John only reflects on his brief affair. I felt a little cheated when her body is found, quite impossibly, in a field. She's instrumental to the case yes but also to the who tableau of the crime and hence the book. The replacement girl is suppose to be this genius interesting thing but she comes in as a pale substitute.Security consultant, Max Stillman, is called in to clean up the mess. Grabbing data analyst, John Walker, from McLaren's San Francisco headquarters to assist him, because he knew Ellen intimately, the two set off across the country, tracking Ellen and the money. Stillman's convinced she's guilty of insurance fraud. Walker is sure she's innocent and sticks with Stillman and the case to protect and defend her. But what these two find, at the end of the road, shocks and surprises even Max Stillman, and he's seen it all. However at a certain point the obvious becomes apparent and the three of them trapped in this town that kills for cash is played well but never pays off.
What hurts the book is that we're total outsiders to this town and its residents so they're all violent zombies attacking the heroes. There is no connection to the villains, they're just a mass facelss mob. If Ellen had been one of them then we could see some motivation see some betrayal, some game played. I love Thomas Perry's work but no one is close to getting into the scrapes that Jane Whitefield does and gets out of.
Max Stillman is good, not a Jane but good. John just gets to be a newbie and the chickie who loves computers is just there as a sex convenience and DC-esque Oracle.
A nice ride but don't expect the bells and whistles and porterhous you get with 4 out of 5 of teh Jane Whitefield books. This is a departure when instead there should have been some kind of combo action. Jane trying to hide Ellen as Max.John and towns[people close in all for different reasons. Now that wou;d've been interesting.
A page turner? Ehhhh, a finisher. You're 100 pages in, might as well finish it.
Summary of Death Benefits
A careful, methodical young data analyst for a California insurance company, John Walker knows when people will marry, at what age they will most likely have children, and when they will die. All signs point to a long successful career?until Max Stillman, a gruff security consultant, appears without warning at the office. It seems a colleague with whom Walker once had an affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor. Stillman wants to find and convict her; Walker is convinced the woman is innocent. Now Walker teams up with Stillman on an urgent north-by-northeast race? relentlessly leading to a pay-off that just might shock the life out of him. . . .Fans of Thomas Perry's popular series featuring Jane Whitefield, the Seneca Indian woman who helps people disappear (The Face-Changers, Shadow Woman, et al.) may be disappointed when they discover that Death Benefits doesn't feature the heroine who has won this writer so many new readers. But the disappointment won't last longer than the first page of this intriguing and extremely well-written new thriller, whose hero, John Walker, a data analyst for a large insurance company, deserves a series of his own.
When a security man named Max Stillman plucks Walker out of the office pool and dragoons him into investigating a fraud against the McClaren Life and Casualty, Walker's previously safe life takes a new and potentially dangerous turn. As the pair begin searching for the missing employee, who signed off on the huge (and phony) payoff of a death claim, and follow her to a grave in a Midwestern wheat field, Walker discovers talents he never knew he had and a thirst for vengeance. With the mysterious Stillman, he tracks the conspirators to a New Hampshire village and an explosive and shocking conclusion to a fraud that's much older than either of the men might have guessed. Like Don Winslow, whose California Fire and Life also focused on insurance fraud, Perry manages to make even the dusty back corners of the corporate world a likely setting for mystery and mayhem. This is a sharp, suspenseful, successful debut for a pair of unlikely compatriots, marked by Perry's edgy, noirish style, lively dialogue, and superb pacing. --Jane Adams
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