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Death Benefits

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
When gruff and intimidating security consultant Max Stillman appears without warning in the San Francisco office of McClaren Life and Casualty and begins asking questions and scrutinizing files, the employees can't help wondering just which of them he's been hired to investigate. The first to find out is young data analyst John Walker when Stillman's mysterious investigation leads out of town, he announces he's taking Walker with him.
Walker has been picked because a colleague with whom he once had a love affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor. Since Walker knew her intimately, Stillman believes he's likely to be useful in finding and convicting her. But because he knows her so well, Walker is convinced that she is innocent, and that he must join the pursuit so that he can defend her. These conflicting purposes unite Walker and Stillman in an urgent search that propels them across the country and into unexpected dangers. The trail ends in a deceptively peaceful corner of the New Hampshire countryside, where they find themselves trapped by a deadly conspiracy that's much bigger, older, and more evil than they could ever have imagined.
Martin Cruz Smith declared a previous Perry novel as beautifully crafted as a good automatic weapon. In Death Benefits, Perry gives us another stunning suspense story with writing that is, as the Los Angeles Times said, as sharp as a sushi knife.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 1, 2001
      Perry (Blood Money; The Face Changers) serves up a clever entertainment (in the Graham Greene sense of the word) set in the high-stakes insurance world. After a deliberately ambiguous prologue (just why is Ellen Snyder going to an L.A. airport hotel before dawn?), we learn that Ellen, working out of the Pasadena office of a prestigious San Francisco insurance company called McClaren's, recently authorized a 12$- million death benefit payment to a man who turned out to be an imposter. Now both the imposter and Ellen have navished, and McClaren's has called in mysterious operative Max Stillman to investigate the apparent conspiracy to defraud. Stillman oh-so-deftly draws young John Walker, an analyst in the main San Francisco office, into the investigation. Walker cooperates with Stillman because he doesn't believe Ellens's guilty; he's still a little bit in love with her from their training class days, although Ellen's career plans left no room for more than a casual interoffice romance. Casual is the operative word here: a casual remark from Walker to an enigmatic computer hacker named Serena leads to a seriously steamy interlude. And casual is the best way to describe Perry's seemingly effortless method of developing character and building suspense. His style is so assured as to be invisible, seamlessly supplying plot and character information as the chase leads from California to Chicago, Miami and finally a small town in New Hampshire. Though the finale echoes the premise of a particular Dachiell Hammett story, everything else feels as fresh as dawn. (Jan. 16) Forecast: Perry won an Edgar for The Butcher's Boy, and Metzger's Dog was New York Times Notable Book of the Year. This is his finest novel yet and, if sold with enthusiasm, could chart significant numbers. The bold evocative, b&w jacket will help, as will the four-city author tour.

    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2000
      Here, Perry takes a break from Jane Whitefield. John Walker, who works for McClaren Life and Casualty, gets more than he bargained for when he is asked to investigate a large death benefit paid out to the wrong person.

      Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from October 15, 2000
      Edgar Award-winning Perry is the kind of writer who can make any subject enthralling. Here, he breathes excitement into the life of insurance agents, romance into examining columns of figures, and suspense into office cubicle life. Perry also debuts an unlikely but engaging pair of sleuths: hard-bitten, middle-age claims investigator Max Stillman and the just-out-of-college, appealingly confused young data analyst John Walker. Stillman is called into the home office of McClaren's Life and Casualty after the discovery that $12 million in death benefits has been paid to an imposter and that the insurance agent who authorized the payment has disappeared. The mystery expands when the missing agent, a lost love of Walker's, is found murdered. From the cinematic opening scene, which follows the doomed woman to an undisclosed appointment, through the threading of Stillman and Walker through a labyrinth of figures and deals, Percy never lets up on the suspense. Masterful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      November 1, 2000
      Edgar Award-winning novelist Perry, who always provides a good read, takes a step up from last year's Blood Money with a solid, character-driven story that makes even the insurance business seem fascinating. John Walker, a young data analyst for McClaren Life and Casualty, finds himself on the streets with a shrewd but enigmatic partner, an older security expert named Max Stillman who has been hired by the firm to track down the thieves behind a $12 million scam. The agent who approved the fraudulent death benefit, a woman Walker once loved, has disappeared. Is she part of the rip-off or a victim of a much larger conspiracy? With the help of Serena, a quirky computer expert who develops an intriguing relationship with Walker, the two men follow a trail that leads from California to Illinois to Florida and finally to a deadly confrontation in the deceptively peaceful New Hampshire countryside. Throughout, one senses, unseen, the sure hand of a master craftsman. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/00.]--Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

      Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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