Book Review: See Jane Run

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

See Jane Run     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Liz Brady
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character
Series: Jane Yeats # 3
Second Story Press; $15.95 trade paperback; 335 pages

Six years ago, true-crime writer Jane Yeats lost her lover Peter in a senseless, random murder. For 5 of those years, she was certain that the man who had killed Pete was doing his time in prison. William Shortt, or Short Willie as some called him, was a self-confessed serial rapist who had apparently progressed beyond rape to murder. He confessed to more than a dozen rapes, plus the murders of 5 others: 4 women and Pete, who it seemed had caught him in the act on his last murder.

Then on the eve of admitting that he had falsely confessed to the murders, Shortt is killed by another inmate. Jane vows revenge on Pete’s killer, though now the trail is stone cold. With the help of her former colleague Sam Brewer and her friend Silver Maracle, she embarks on a harrowing journey into the depths of a killer’s soul. She has but one goal: to live long enough to kill her lover’s murderer.

See Jane Run! is the third in the Jane Yeats series by Liz Brady. I enjoyed it as much as the last one, Blind Date. This one, however, goes deeper into what makes Jane tick. Jane’s a bit more rough-and-tumble than most protagonists in Canadian detective fiction. A blurb on the back compares her to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, but quite frankly, I think this is misleading. Jane’s got more nerve than Stephanie could ever hope to have. She’s also not the preachy feminist that Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski has become. Yet at the same time, she’s not just a Sam Spade in drag.

Brady’s a thoughtful, thought-provoking writer. Even as Jane is buying a gun from a not-exactly-reputable source, she’s questioning whether or not she will have the strength of will to actually kill Pete’s killer.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM