The Butcher's Boy The Butcher's Boy is an Exton adaptation of Thomas Perry's Edgar Award winning 1983 novel The Butcher's Boy, an unnamed assasain hired to kill a Colorado Senator in Denver. The Butcher's Boy, which received a 1983 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel, followed by Metzger's Dog, Big Fish, Island, and Sleeping Dogs. He then launched the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series: Vanishing Act (chosen as a "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association"), Dance for the Dead, Shadow Woman, The Face Changers, Blood Money, Runner, and Poison Flower. The New York Times selected Nightlife for its best seller selection From this point, Perry has elected to develop a non-series list of mysteries with Death Benefits, Pursuit (which won a Gumshoe Award in 2002), Dead Aim, Night Life, Fidelity, and Strip. In The Informant, released in 2011, Perry brought back the hit-man character first introduced in The Butcher's Boy and later the protagonist in Sleeping Dogs. 1980s