The Tree of Light and Flowers, Thomas Perry’s final novel, is a fitting, if occasionally fatigued, farewell paean to one of his most beloved creations, Jane Whitefield. A Seneca Native American woman whose unique talent for guiding people in peril so they can “disappear,” Jane is truly one of the most engaging and singular characters in crime fiction.
Beginning in 1996, Perry produced ten Whitefield novels. While each is well worth reading, their quality does fluctuate – because the conceit of the overall story is essentially the same in each book. Part of the pleasure is how Perry avoids, for the most part, ever lapsing into a formulaic thriller. If the “bones” of every novel in the series (Jane is found/contacted/begged by various people who are innocent and falsely accused of everything from embezzlement to murder, and provides a soup-to-nuts pantry of everything a fugitive could need) Perry always tosses that proverbial wrench into the works, as the villains range from seedy businessmen, Russian mobsters, controlling lovers and financial scammers. The debut, Vanishing Act is as perfect of a thriller as one could possibly find.
Perry was born in the same area of upstate New York where he sets the stories in motion, literally – these books may not be On the Road, but there’s plenty of driving, flying and flat-out running in every novel. The other core aspect of the Whitefield series is Perry’s clear, abiding love and reverence for both the region and Seneca lore. At times, he can lapse into what feels like an ethnographic excursion, incorporating Jane’s familial dreams and tribal mythology, but overall, Perry brings a refreshing energy to his protagonist and her milieu.
If the character of a Native woman with multiple fighting skills (and boy, does she use them!) and a specialty helping people vanish is appealing, I’d suggest reading the series in order. Over the course of 30 years, watching Perry adapt to new technologies and techniques for disappearing people into the ozone is a window into the steady march of tech into everyday lives.
In The Tree of Light and Flowers, Jane, married, finally pregnant after years of trying, due to deliver soon, is seemingly finished guiding fugitives across the country. Carey, her doctor husband, has always been rather lukewarm to Jane’s escapades, with willful ignorance a tool he must employ for his own sanity. The drama begins when, after shopping, Jane is driving home and a car slams into her. She comes very close to having a fatal miscarriage. We don’t know why, or even if, her car was targeted. The baby, May, survives and Jane begins a new chapter in her life. Or so she thinks.
A teenaged Seneca woman accused of killing a man as he attempted to rape her, and is wanted by the man’s policeman brother, makes her way to Jane’s home and pleads for help. Against her pledge to herself to leave this game, she invites the woman, Clare, to live with she and Carey and be their babysitter. Clare is only sixteen, and Jane thinks she’s too young to be successfully “disappeared.” Nevertheless, she begins preparing an alternative identity for her.
In every title of this series, much of the pleasure for the reader stems from the (often fantastical, but still) meticulous creation of a new person. How it’s done (and Perry is nothing if not convincing) never fails to fascinate. From a stack of blank birth certificates to college transcripts and a credit/financial history, Jane has it down! Vanishing Act is rich with these ruses. But times change.
As Jane tells Clare, “Before anything else happens you need to know some things. I know you think that because you found me, you’re safe. But being here might actually be the most dangerous thing you’ve done. I’ve taken a lot of people away from their troubles. Dozens. For each of them, there’s somebody out there still searching. After the first few years I’ve always told my runners that. But as years came and went, there were more runners, more people who wanted to kill them and kill me too, if that was what it took to get to them. It’s also gotten harder to keep from getting found. And the world has become a more warlike and dangerous place in general. It makes the things I did for years – getting false identifications and documents and making false histories for people to help start their new lives – nearly impossible.”
In the preceding book of the series, The Left-Handed Twin, Jane is the target of a whole fleet of Russian mobsters, with a black widowish woman named Magda deep in the mix. Well, she’s back, having “gotten away” at the conclusion of the book. In The Tree of Light and Flowers, Magda and Jane play a vicious cat-and-mouse game.
The story moves back and forth between Magda and her gangster comrades and Jane’s attempts to juggle her new life with May, Carey and now Clare. The second half of the story expands – additional characters and people from Jane’s past play key roles and Perry adroitly keeps the plates spinning – he never lets things get too busy … the action always flows.
This book is really a sequel to The Left-Handed Twin, because the same forces who sought to capture and “auction” off Jane’s knowledge before killing her, reappear. “Tree” certainly can be read as a standalone but is an even more rewarding experience to read after its predecessor.
Another aspect of the Jane Whitefield series is her remarkable ability with weaponry – all kinds. Over the course of the series, not to mention this entry, the body count Jane racks up is…significant. She’s adept with guns, knives, fire, and fists. There is a subtext in all the Whitefield books that remind us of a revenge novel. Jane dispatches sadistic villains who want her captured or dead with a quiet glee, as though their transgressions against her “runners” are personal. It’s also a counterpoint to the violence porn of say, Lee Child. Jane has a genuine personality, a point of view, and unlike the high body count tough-guy novels, her own wellbeing is easy – and fun – to relate to. That said, “killing machine” aptly describes her when she’s in me or them mode.
The crime fiction world lost a towering figure when Thomas Perry died last year. This final novel isn’t exactly “peak” Perry, but it stands as a fitting, memorable cap to a brilliant career and always entertaining writer who thankfully has left behind a body of work few will equal.
Peter Handel has been writing about crime fiction since the early 1990s. His reviews, interviews, and profiles have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Portland Oregonian, Pages Magazine, Mystery Reader’s Journal, The Rap Sheet and CrimeReads. Join his Substack here.
