The Burglar by Thomas Perry /Review by Danny Lindsey
The Burglar
By Thomas Perry
Mysterious Press
$26.00
ISBN 978-0802129000
Publication Date: January 8, 2019
BOOK OF THE DAY
Elle Stowell 20s, diminutive, attractive
Describe for yourself the perfect burglar. Think for a minute. How about small enough to wriggle through a pet door? Shinny up a drainpipe? What about appearance? Maybe female, young (20ish), attractive and in good shape? Able to fit in as a co-ed home from college back east somewhere?
Thomas Perry may have invented the perfect thief in Elle Stowell. She fits right into all those categories, and she is a professional. Adept at spotting the tell-tale signs that a house is empty, she can be found running through upscale neighborhoods early and late, sporting expensive running shoes and college sweatshirts. No one gives her a second look as she blends into the scenery, just another fitness nut pursuing her passion.
What Elle is really doing is pursuing her livelihood, and she is very, very good at it. But things go off the rails suddenly when she opens the door to the master suite in the home of an art gallery owner and finds three bodies, shot while enjoying a three-way. The only thing Elle takes from that house is a camera, still running, which may or may not have captured her image as she entered the room.
The action accelerates as Elle becomes the quarry of – who? Someone is stalking her. Someone obviously had other cameras running in the house, and it quickly becomes apparent to Elle that she must solve the murders to prevent becoming the next victim.
The pace is fast and the plot, while seemingly “out there,” is believable. Elle could be the next jogger coming down the sidewalk. The Burglar could be the first in a good series.
Danny Lindsey keeps trying to retire. After a 20-year Army career and a 25-year second one in the private sector, he’s finally settled down. His current gig is as the Veteran Employment Services Manager for a Huntsville, A.L. based non-profit, Still Serving Veterans. Both full careers were characterized by numerous writing assignments, from war plans to operating policies and procedures, then on to white papers, analyses of alternatives and competitive contract and grant proposals. Now his writing consists of blogs for the website www.ssv.org, podcasts for the local NPR affiliate, and a half dozen Pulitzer-worthy, albeit unpublished novels.
Update: Danny's 2017 Claymore Award winning manuscript Serial Justice is now available on Amazon!