Jane Whitefield

Jane Whitefield-the fierce and resourceful heroine of Thomas Perry's most popular thrillers-returns from retirement to guide a fugitive out of danger. For more than a decade, Jane Whitefield pursued her unusual profession: "I'm a guide ... I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is." Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of guns-for-hire. That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she's made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner. Her quest for safety sets in motion a mission that may be as much of a rescue operation as it is a chance for revenge.

Jane Whitefield of the Seneca Nation has spent years helping desperate people disappear. But now she is about to become the hunted one. When James Shelby is unjustly convicted of his wife's murder, Jane spirits him out of the heavily guarded criminal court building in downtown Los Angeles. Then, within minutes, Jane is kidnapped. The person who killed Shelby's wife now wants him dead, and Jane's captors will put her through excruciating torment to discover his whereabouts. Though Jane manages to escape, she is wounded and weak, thousands of miles from home without money or identification . . . and hunted by both police and criminals. Attempting to rejoin Shelby and get to safety, Jane is caught in a waking nightmare, as many of the pursuers she has eluded for years gather to bid on her capture in a multimillion-dollar auction. The winning bidder buys the chance to access Jane's memory, and the locations of everyone she has helped disappear.

After two decades protecting innocent victims on the run, and a year after getting shot on a job that took a dangerous turn for the worse, Jane McKinnon, née Whitefield, has settled into the quiet life of a suburban housewife in Amherst, New York-or so she thinks. One morning as she comes back from a long run, Jane is met by an unusual sight: all eight clan mothers, the female leaders of the Seneca clans, parked in her driveway in two black cars. A childhood friend of Jane's from the reservation, Jimmy, is wanted by the police for the murder of a local white man. But instead of turning himself in, he's fled, and no one knows where he is hiding out. At the clan mothers' request, Jane retraces a walking trip she and Jimmy took together when they were fourteen in hopes that he has gone the same way again. But it soon becomes clear that the police aren't the only ones after him. As the chase intensifies, the number of people caught up in this twisted plot multiplies, and Jane is the only one who can protect those endangered by it. A String of Beads is an addictive, fast-paced thriller about how abandoning the past can sometimes be the hardest thing to do, even when your life-and the life of those you love-depends on it.