The Broken Window

April 14, 2008
In bestseller Deaver’s entertaining eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Cold Moon
), Rhyme, a forensic consultant for the NYPD, and his detective partner, Amelia Sachs, take on a psychotic mastermind who uses data mining—“the
business of the twenty-first century”—not only to select and hunt down his victims but also to frame the crimes on complete innocents. Rhyme is reluctantly drawn into a case involving his estranged cousin, Arthur, who’s been charged with first-degree murder. But when Rhyme and his crew look into the strange set of circumstances surrounding his cousin’s alleged crime, they discover tangential connections to a company that specializes in collecting and analyzing consumer data. Further investigation leads them to some startlingly Orwellian revelations: Big Brother is watching your every move and could be a homicidal maniac. The topical subject matter makes the story line particularly compelling, while longtime fans will relish Deaver’s intimate exploration of a tragedy from Rhyme’s adolescence.

August 25, 2008
Dennis Boutsikaris’s reading of Deaver’s latest Lincoln Rhyme thriller is positively chilling. When the quadriplegic detective’s cousin is arrested for murder, it seems to be an open-and-shut case, as plenty of forensic evidence links him to the crime. But Lincoln discovers that the real killer is framing others for his killings by manipulating intimate computer information. A deadly game of cat and mouse pits Lincoln; his partner, Amanda Sachs; and the rest of his NYPD crew against an adversary who is consistently one step ahead of them. Boutsikaris’s reading is excellent, but he really ratchets the intensity when performing the passages told from the killer’s point of view. His delivery fully embraces the cold, calculating mind of the murderer, imbuing his seemingly dispassionate thoughts with an underlying sense of barely controlled rage and menace. A Simon & Schuster hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 14).

May 15, 2008
Deaver's ("The Sleeping Doll") latest novel, which pairs disabled criminologist Lincoln Rhyme and Detective Amelia Sachs for the eighth time, is sure to be one of his most popular books to date. When Lincoln suspects his cousin is being framed for murder, other similar cases of stolen identities and innocent people being set up lead him to a data mining company. However, Lincoln is able to track the real killer by exposing crime-scene evidence unintentionally left behind. As the killer feels the police closing in on him, he targets his pursuers by messing with their records, changing information to complicate their lives. Pertinent to today's society of credit cards and computer data, Deaver's thriller reminds us how vulnerable we really are and will be an essential purchase for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/08.]Amanda Scott, Cambridge Springs P.L., PA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2008
As the Lincoln Rhyme series rolls along, the quadriplegic criminalists cases keep getting more and more elaborate. The Cold Moon (2006) was extremely intricate, but this one tops it. Lincolns cousin has been arrested for murder. The case seems airtight, but when he looks into it, Rhyme begins to suspect that he has stumbled onto an especially devious serial killer, one who uses cutting-edge data-mining techniques to steal the identities of his victims and of the innocent people he frames for his crimes. Rhyme is perhaps the best and smartest investigator in the game, but how do you catch a killer when you dont know anything about him? If a large part of writing a mystery is like making a puzzle, then Deaver may just be the cleverest puzzle maker in the business. He has built his reputation on the strength of well-drawn characters; hyperrealistic dialogue (you dont read it, you hear it); and right-angle plot twists that are impossible to predict. There is no one quite like Deaveror like Lincoln Rhyme.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)