The Left-Handed Twin: A Jane Whitefield Novel

Rescue artist Jane Whitefield leads a deadly crime syndicate on a wild chase through the Northeast

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear. Fearing for their lives, fleeing dangerous situations, her clients come to her when they need to vanish completely―to assume a new identity and establish a new life somewhere they won’t be found. And when people are desperate enough to need her services, they come to the old house in rural western New York where Jane was raised to begin their escape.

It’s there that, one spring night, Jane finds a young woman fresh from LA with a whole lot of trouble behind her. After she cheated on her boyfriend, he dragged her to the home of the offending man and made her watch as he killed him. She testified against the boyfriend, but a bribed jury acquitted him, and now he’s free and trying to find and kill her.

Jane agrees to help, and it soon becomes clear that outsmarting the murderous boyfriend is not beyond Jane’s skills. But the boyfriend has some new friends: members of a Russian organized crime brotherhood. When they learn that Sara is traveling with a tall, dark-haired woman who disappears people, the Russians become increasingly interested in helping the boyfriend find the duo. They’ve heard rumors that such a woman existed―and believe that, if forcibly extracted, the knowledge she has of past clients could be worth millions.

Thus begins a bloodthirsty chase that winds through the cities of the northeast before finally plunging into Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness. But in a pursuit where nothing can be trusted, one thing is certain: only one party―Jane or her pursuers―will emerge alive.

Perry seasons the fast-moving chase narrative with engrossing details about becoming a new person, from constructing a false identity to relearning how to move through daily life in an unrecognizable way. This time, though, there is a stunning extra: with the mobsters closing in, Jane hopes to lose her pursuers by hiking Maine’s Hundred- Mile Wilderness, the most arduous stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Cue the ever-versatile Perry to display his outdoor-adventure-writing chops. Not only is the 100-mile chase itself excruciatingly exciting, it’s also chockablock with “I-didn’t-know-that!” facts about trail survival. Another stunner from a modern master.”
—Booklist ⭐ STARRED REVIEW

Perry delivers nonstop action, relentless tension, and such three-dimensional secondary characters.”
—Publishers Weekly

There are probably only half a dozen suspense writers alive who can be depended upon to deliver high-voltage shocks; vivid, sympathetic characters; and compelling narratives each time they publish. Thomas Perry is one of them.”
—Stephen King

Thomas Perry is the author of 23 novels including the Jane Whitefield series (Vanishing Act, Dance for the Dead, Shadow Woman, The Face Changers, Blood Money, Runner, Poison Flower, and A String of Beads), Death Benefits, and Pursuit, the first recipient of the Gumshoe Award for best novel. He won the Edgar for The Butcher’s Boy, and Metzger’s Dog was a New York Times Notable Book. The Independent Mystery Bookseller’s Association included Vanishing Act in its “100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century,” and Nightlife was a New York Times bestseller. Metzger’s Dog was voted one of NPR’s 100 Killer Thrillers–Best Thrillers Ever. Perry was born in Tonawanda, New York in 1947. He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Rochester in 1974. He has worked as a park maintenance man, factory laborer, commercial fisherman, university administrator and teacher, and a writer and producer of prime time network television shows. He lives in Southern California.

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