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Pursuit [Mass Market Paperback]

Thomas Perry (Author)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Release Date: Jan 1 2003

“Perry is the best suspense writer in the business. . . . Pursuit is relentless, filled with twists and turns, that rare page-turner that keeps one reading late into the night to finish.”
–The Boston Globe

Thirteen bodies are found in a Louisville restaurant. When the police can find no suspect or motive, a victim’s family seeks the services of the enigmatic and solitary specialist Roy Prescott, known for his ability to find people who don’t want to be found. Working outside the law and willing to do what the police can’t, Prescott hunts the killer, an elusive adversary who is as smart, as methodical, as deadly as he is. The only way to conduct this pursuit is to goad the killer into believing that he must kill Roy Prescott. It is a contest fought from one end of the country to the other, and both men understand that when it’s over, only one of them will be alive.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } “Perry is the best suspense writer in the business. . . . Pursuit is relentless, filled with twists and turns, that rare page-turner that keeps one reading late into the night to finish.”
–The Boston Globe

Thirteen bodies are found in a Louisville restaurant. When the police can find no suspect or motive, a victim’s family seeks the services of the enigmatic and solitary specialist Roy Prescott, known for his ability to find people who don’t want to be found. Working outside the law and willing to do what the police can’t, Prescott hunts the killer, an elusive adversary who is as smart, as methodical, as deadly as he is. The only way to conduct this pursuit is to goad the killer into believing that he must kill Roy Prescott. It is a contest fought from one end of the country to the other, and both men understand that when it’s over, only one of them will be alive.

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Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (Jan 1 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0804115435
ISBN-13: 978-0804115438
Product Dimensions: 18 x 10.7 x 2.9 cm
Shipping Weight: 204 g

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #54,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

From Amazon

Thomas Perry's Pursuit is a dark tale of two killers, one a cold- blooded hit man and the other, the hero, something much murkier. When 13 people are mowed down in a restaurant, a police consultant realizes that it's the work of a professional who's tried to make a contract hit look like a random mass killing. Enter Roy Prescott, an expert in hunting down criminals using methods generally frowned on by law enforcement. Prescott uses the national media and the unknown killer's ego to draw his attention, then plays a game of cat-and- mouse with him in which the stakes quickly grow higher. Perry, best-known for his fine Jane Whitefield series, has a precise feel for characters who work for vengeance and justice outside the law, and Prescott easily gains the reader's sympathy while maintaining his bad-guy, good-guy mystique.

Pursuit may draw some comparisons with Lawrence Block's wry Hit Man and Hit List, but while Block is always excellent, it's Perry's work that'll have you waking up in a cold sweat. --Barrie Trinkle --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The massacre of 13 people in a Louisville restaurant opens Perry's latest psychological thriller (after Death Benefits). Criminologist Daniel Millikan determines that this was no random occurrence, but an assassination carried out by a ruthless, methodical predator but who was the target? The killer, James Varney, is a cold-blooded psychopath who claimed his first victim his aunt at the age of 11; a loner, he later turned to robbery and murder for hire. Against his better judgment, Millikan supplies the father of one of the victims with the name of someone who might be able to help: shady operator Roy Prescott. Prescott's past is dark enough to enable him to get inside the mind of the killer and, with Millikan's help, he sets in motion an elaborate cat-and-mouse game that moves from city to city, with each man trying to anticipate the other's every move as the body count continues to rise. The traps Prescott devises to catch his prey and the ways in which Varney eludes them are fascinating, albeit a bit far-fetched, and Perry supplies just enough background to give the two leads depth with a minimum of psychobabble. The female characters, while essential to the plot, are thinly drawn by comparison, and the book loses momentum about halfway through, when Varney goes into hiding and Prescott tries to determine who hired him to commit the initial murders but Perry definitely comes through in the end, expertly tying the threads together. Agent, Lescher and Lescher. 6-city author tour.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars

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4.0 out of 5 stars One of Perry's best Mar 4 2004

By Larry Gandle

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Thomas Perry is very well known for his riveting thrillers. In some ways, he is highly underrated in that his books are so good, he should be a very well known best-selling author. He has been putting out quality work for years. His latest is no exception and is, in fact, one of his best in quite some time.
PURSUIT, as the title aptly describes, is a novel about a cat and mouse chase between two killers. Both of them are professionals for hire. However, one of them works for the good guys, the other is a true monster. When thirteen bodies turn up dead in an intimate restaurant, Daniel Milliken, ex-detective and current professor of criminology, realizes one of the dead customers was the target of a highly skilled and dangerous assassin. He has one of the victim's families hire Roy Prescott, who specializes in hunting down murderers and, in most instances, killing them. Prescott's target is James Varney, an assassin for hire who has no regard for human life. Prescott sets up one trap after another to ensnare Varney. However, Varney eventually starts setting traps of his own.
Perry specializes in novels about hide and seek. His series character, Jane Whitefield, makes people disappear by changing their identity. This standalone is again about people trying to disappear. The book takes off from page one and rarely pauses for breath. These types of books make for some fun reading and this one is definitely no exception. Not only does Perry take great care in the construction of the plot of this novel, but, he uses the same care in the creation of his characters. Varney, Prescott and Milliken are all real to the reader by the conclusion of this ingenious work.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Truth in Advertising Mar 1 2004

By Dr. Christopher Coleman

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I've been a fan of Thomas Perry's since his first published novels, Metzger's Dogs and The Butcher's Boy (both of which I strongly recommend). He seemed to have disappeared for a bit, then returned with the Jane Whitefield series, which, although enjoyable, didn't have the same edge for me as the earlier works. But after a few of those, Perry turned back to stand-alone novels, and Pursuit is one of those. It's a decent entry into a real standby of crime fiction, the duel between two equally strong adversaries in which "the hunter becomes the hunted". Perry's weakness here lies in the very nature of the genre itself--the outcome must be predictable or the story will be unsatisfying or incomplete. The story moves forward with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. But his strength, here and in the Whitefield series, is the rich detail of the hunt, of pursuit and escape. The situations his characters find themselves in, their actions and reactions, are engrossing, and the characters themselves, especially the villian James Varney, are fascinating. And Perry's pacing is excellent, too. The novel contains a number of stories from the characters's pasts, and just when I was at the point of thinking, "The book's almost over and I still don't know much about what really motivates the hero," that issue was immediately addressed. "Pursuit" is exactly what it says it is, and well worth a read.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid This Chase: Pursuit by Thomas Perry Feb 9 2004

By Kevin Tipple

Format:Hardcover

This novel from Thomas Perry is an extremely disappointing and emotionally flat read where there is little difference between the hunter and the hunted. As the novel opens, a killer has managed to kill thirteen people inside a restaurant in order to confuse the police over who was his actual intended victim. But, ex-cop and now Criminology Professor Daniel Millikan is invited in to the crime scene by the local police and quickly figures out who the target was. Robert Cushner was the intended target and the killer killed everyone around not only to confuse the issue but also to prove that he could do it and get away with it.

Professor Millikan soon flies home to Los Angles from Louisville after helping the Police all he can to find this special unfeeling professional killer. But, after the Police prove that they can't, the son's father, also going by the name of Robert Cushner contacts Millikan. The boy's father is wondering if Millikan can put him in touch with someone who might be able, not to get justice and bring the killer to trial, but to seek vengeance and make sure this never happens again. Millikan knows such a man and his name is Prescott.

Prescott takes the job, because that is what he does for a living. Prescott begins an elaborate chess game with the killer and soon other people are dying as Prescott and the killer each try to prove his manhood. Neither wants to admit the possibility that the other is better or going to win the game of death. An elaborate chase across the country and back again, weaves through this 370-page novel leaving a trail of bodies in its wake.

This is an extremely flat book where there is virtually no emotion coming through the work. These cardboard characters emote through various descriptions but at such distance from the reader that it never comes through. What does come through is the fact that there is little difference between the two and virtually no feelings over the steadily rising body count as Prescott baits the killer over and over again. This novel becomes an extremely boring piece of work and a real disappointment to this Thomas Perry fan. Fortunately, he has written some very good stuff in the past so check out some of his older titles and take a wide pass on this one.

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4.0 out of 5 stars a guy's book

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I had never heard of Perry before picking this book up, now im going to go out and get another... Read more

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