The Old Man

Since his Edgar Award-winning debut novel, The Butcher's Boy, in 1983, Thomas Perry has put together a rewarding string of suspense novels with as much cool competence as some of his best protagonists bring to their work. The Old Man features Dan Chase, a former U.S. military covert operator in his 60s, looking over his shoulder for adversaries. Lying low in Vermont, he lives with his two prized rescue dogs and his go-bag always packed. Thirty years earlier, his black-op mission in Libya to deliver $20 million to rebels went sideways; the brass cut him loose to fight his own way home and then buried any record of the operation. Disillusioned and angry, Chase went off grid, invested the money well and set up a briefcase of aliases complete with legitimate documents and substantial bank accounts. Good thing. When U.S.-Libya relations shift, for political reasons, U.S. Intelligence sends its best teams after him. They refer to him as "the old man"--but as the most persistent of his pursuers, Julian Carson, observes: "the old man wasn't just an old man, like somebody's uncle. He was old in the way a seven-foot rattlesnake was old."

Perry's pacing is impeccable. The Old Man rips along with plenty of typical tradecraft details, wet work and disguises, but also takes a breather with interludes in Chicago for the old man to find romance, and in Jonesboro, Ark., for Carson to help out his family's vegetable farm. Then it's back to dodging and killing with enough plot twists to keep the train rolling down the track. Perry's a real pro. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

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