Rating: 
Summary: Suspend disbelief, and enjoy
Review: A calm, almost affectless manner accentuates the jarring discordance of violence in Edgar Award-winner Perry's ("The Butcher's Boy") latest thriller, which begins with the protagonist's rescue of a suicidal young woman from the waves off Santa Barbara. Robert Mallon, a successful builder who struck it very rich in a development deal and then retired after his divorce, has been in a stall for ten years. The girl, who won't even tell him her name, awakens something more than his Samaritan instincts and when she succeeds in killing herself two days later, Mallon determines to find out why.What's begun on a whim turns deadly as Mallon and his private-eye friend, Lydia, probe, uncovering different, contrasting sides of Catherine Broward, unearthing uglier, sadder secrets as they go. The reader will be well ahead of Mallon in figuring out why Catherine killed herself, but the reader has a fair amount of help, as Perry keeps pace with Mallon from the viewpoint of Parish, a rather stereotypical (but no less scary for that) mercenary hunter. As always Perry's writing is a pleasure and from Mallon's quiet, dogged awakening emerges a man of determination and thoughtful sympathies with a growing understanding of how little we can know anyone and how easily people dupe themselves. There are, however, some unbelievable plot elements. Take, for instance, the idea that affluent white people - and all witnesses - could be efficiently dispatched without anyone making a fuss. But a less-than-stellar Perry is still head and shoulders above the pack.
Rating: 
Summary: Discover Perry's brilliance with this mind-blowing thriller
Review: As we scramble to cope in a world imploding from violence, self-defense training has become as common as swimming lessons and drivers education. Women of all ages are attending classes in marital arts and increasing numbers of citizens are arming themselves and heading for shooting ranges. In Thomas Perry's fertile mind, it follows that some savvy entrepreneur might market the ultimate self-defense experience, a sort of pseudo-military resort, in which the insatiable rich can reap the practical skills to thwart potential assaults and the bragging rights to the hottest trend within their social circle. It is this camp --- The Safe-Force School of Self-Defense --- that becomes the center of the concentric ripples of violence in Perry's latest mind-blowing thriller, DEAD AIM. After the initial murder scene hits you straight between the eyes, the story switches cadence with the protagonist, Robert Mallon, rescuing a young woman from an attempted suicide on a California beach. After the intimacy of their encounter, Mallon is stunned when the young woman kills herself a few days later. Ridden with guilt because he wasn't able to dissuade her, he becomes obsessed with learning why Catherine Broward felt driven to end her life. Mallon hires Lydia Marks, a private investigator and former law enforcement colleague, to help him sort through the troubled woman's past. They soon discover Catherine had been romantically involved with a man whose unsavory alliances may have resulted in his murder --- the murder that we're witness to in the opening pages of DEAD AIM. Was Catherine running in fear of those same assassins that murdered her boyfriend? It seems like a plausible explanation, particularly when it is revealed that she spent the previous month attending an exclusive self-defense school hidden away in the hills above Santa Barbara. But the police are uninterested in reopening the case and the school's headmaster refuses to reveal information about his students, forcing Mallon and Marks to dig deeper into Catherine's puzzling life. When Mallon suddenly becomes the target for a group of unknown assassins, it appears that his benevolent intentions are unearthing a much darker secret, affirming his preliminary theory that Catherine's death may not have been a simple suicide. The fundamental storyline alone would make DEAD AIM a compelling novel, but it's Perry's originality that puts him head and shoulders above mainstream thriller writers. Not content to examine one central character from all of his or her angles, Perry probes the multiple minds of protagonists and antagonists with a precision that eliminates the usual extraneous detail and ignites the reader's speculation. Michael Parish, master of the self-defense school, is unnervingly evil and manipulative; his dedicated staff a cross-section of intelligent, highly skilled misfits. All come complete with a sufficiently murky background, a lack of moral conscience and a frightening thirst for violence. As Perry's underlying premise of The Safe-Force School takes a leap into the scarier extremes of what humans are capable of, the plausibility of his masterful fiction is thought provoking and disturbing. Robert Mallon seems, by contrast, the more comfortable composite of ordinary emotions. His obsession with Catherine's suicide is driven by a personal despair --- the type of tragic life experience that leaves wounds that never heal. He reflects our own frustrations in trying to grapple with events that are out of our control and the inevitable rage that results when we try to and fail. The only troubling question for readers may be in rationalizing the Samaritan turned aggressor in the final confrontation. Some reviewers have found this to be a weakness in Perry's otherwise well-crafted storyline. This reviewer believes they've missed the point entirely. While Thomas Perry's remarkable body of work continues to inspire many notable writers whose names frequent the bestseller lists, his name has remained relatively unknown to the reading masses. His Jane Whitefield series has recently broadened his audience with the happy result that some of his earlier out-of-print novels will soon be reissued. What is his reasoning for eschewing the limelight? "It has always seemed to me that the least interesting thing about a book was its author." With sincere apologies to Mr. Perry, I've continuously done my best to undermine that philosophy in the last several years. So if you haven't yet discovered the brilliance of Thomas Perry, his latest thriller, DEAD AIM, is an excellent place to start. --- Reviewed by Ann Bruns
Rating: 
Summary: This one is not exciting as it should be
Review: Guy lives as stranger in Santa Barbara, walking on foot as far as to Goleta beach is quite beyond my comprehension. Saving a young woman and then the story evolves into a lukewarm and not quite believable plot. I've lost interest about 2/5 of the book, the part left is just a non-commital ride. This one is not a good one done by Thomoas Perry, and I used to give him the highest praises. One thing is good though, Perry finally changed his Islamic Jihad Photo on the inside of the dust jacket and it's the only goodness that I've found out of this book. Sorry, no cigar this time, Senor.
Rating:
Summary: Great Escape
Review: I almost did not buy this book because of the editorial review and glad I decided to get it anyway. As always, Perry makes this an engrossing read and a fast one. He delves into an interesting premise of doing something good by saving a life and ends up getting involved in murders and a creepy expensive self-defense training school. If you enjoy reading to escape, buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Escape
Review: I almost did not buy this book because of the editorial review and glad I decided to get it anyway. As always, Perry makes this an engrossing read and a fast one. He delves into an interesting premise of doing something good by saving a life and ends up getting involved in murders and a creepy expensive self-defense training school. If you enjoy reading to escape, buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: Retired rich guy gets involved
Review: I have never read a Thomas Perry book I did not like. In this one the main character observes a young girl appearing to attempt suicide by walking into the Pacific Ocean. He saves her, gets romantically involved, then she disappears. I won't tell you what happens but the hero goes to GREAT lengths to find out. Because the encounter was very brief some have opined no one would do what the hero did, but bear in mind that a rich, retired guy with nothing to do except take walks might be looking for some excitement and boy did he find it !
Rating:
Summary: Perry, you can do better!
Review: I love Thomas Perry's books. But this one leaves me baffled. What happened at the end, did you have someone else finish it for you? Alas, I'll always be a faithful reader. When is your next book due?
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing
Review: In his recent books, Thomas Perry has extrapolated on the human potential for both good and bad. In Dead Aim he offers the possibility of providing wealthy, jaded people with the opportunity to kill people. It's an intriguing concept in that very few of us haven't at some point or another declared--out of upset or anger--that we'd like to kill so and so. Perry's central figures are always thoughtfully constructed and believable. Robert Mallon, hero of Dead Aim, is a decent, good-hearted man pushed by the suicide of a young woman he's rescued from a first suicide attempt to try to comprehend why she was so determined to take her life. Anyone who has known a suicide wonders about the reasons. It's an act so shocking and so counter to the majority whose optimism (no matter how minimal) and whose life-curiosity keeps us ticking along day after day that it's difficult to grasp the concept of an interior darkness so deep that no light can illuminate it. So Mallon sets out to find answers and becomes a target for the wealthy killing machines who've been trained at The Safe-Force School of Self-Defense. And he manages repeatedly to survive the attempts on his life. Where the book falters is in the final confrontation(s)--Mallon single-handedly taking on half a dozen highly trained assassins. Without sufficient background information to substantiate it, he morphs from mild-mannered, decent fellow into someone so skilled at and knowledgable of armed combat that he emerges Rambo-like as the victor. It's an ending that is, on the one hand, very satisfying: the good guy wins, the bad guys lose. On the other hand, it's a little hard to buy. That said, this is--as always--another enjoyable effort. Reading a Perry book is never a waste of time. Any writer who can make you think is a good writer. And if you can remember anything about the book half an hour later, then the author is better than good. Always intelligent, Perry's writing is lean and well-constructed. The idea of a high-priced killing academy is not inconceivable. And despite a slightly abrupt ending, Dead Aim is well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Right on Target
Review: Robert Mallon is content with his life. A millionaire as a result of hard work and accidental perfect timing when his divorce forced him to sell off his homebuilding business, he lives quietly on the California coast. Then he sees a beautiful young woman walk into the ocean and attempt suicide. He rescues her, but then she goes away and is successful on the next try. Haunted by his inability to reach her, and by unresolved issues from his sister's suicide years before, he begins to investigate the young woman's life in an attempt to understand why. The investigation raises even more questions, and then his friend who is helping is killed, and someone tries to kill him. The result is an intense, gripping story. There may be flaws: maybe one or two coincidences that strain the suspension of disbelief, and a middle-aged somewhat sedentary man is unlikely to be able to foil the machinations of young, trained, dedicated, and psychopathic killers. Still, the story captures the imagination and the skilled writing captures the attention.
Rating:
Summary: Right on Target
Review: Robert Mallon is content with his life. A millionaire as a result of hard work and accidental perfect timing when his divorce forced him to sell off his homebuilding business, he lives quietly on the California coast. Then he sees a beautiful young woman walk into the ocean and attempt suicide. He rescues her, but then she goes away and is successful on the next try. Haunted by his inability to reach her, and by unresolved issues from his sister's suicide years before, he begins to investigate the young woman's life in an attempt to understand why. The investigation raises even more questions, and then his friend who is helping is killed, and someone tries to kill him. The result is an intense, gripping story. There may be flaws: maybe one or two coincidences that strain the suspension of disbelief, and a middle-aged somewhat sedentary man is unlikely to be able to foil the machinations of young, trained, dedicated, and psychopathic killers. Still, the story captures the imagination and the skilled writing captures the attention.
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