"The Burning Wire"
Lincoln Rhyme is back, on the trail of a killer whose weapon of choice cripples New York City with fear.
The weapon is invisible and omnipresent. Without it, modern society grinds to a halt. It is the electrical grid. The killer harnesses and steers huge arc flashes with voltage so high, and heat so searing, that steel melts and his victims are set afire, or subtly reconnects a few wires in one’s house or office so that the bathtub, the sink, the computer keyboard, the simple desk lamp can kill.
When the first horrific attack occurs in broad daylight, reducing a city bus to a pile of molten, shrapnel-riddled metal, officials fear terrorism. Rhyme, a world-class forensic criminologist known for his successful apprehension of the most devious criminals, is immediately tapped for the investigation. Long a quadriplegic, he assembles NYPD detective Amelia Sachs and officer Ron Pulaski as his eyes and ears and legs on crime sites, and FBI agent Fred Dellray as his undercover man on the street. As the attacks continue across the city at a sickening pace, and terrifying demand letters begin appearing, the team works desperately against time and with maddeningly little forensic evidence to try to find the killer. Or is it killers….?
Meanwhile, Rhyme is consulting on another high-profile investigation in Mexico with a most coveted quarry in his cross-hairs: the hired killer known as the Watchmaker, one of the few criminals to have eluded Rhyme’s net.
Juggling two massive investigations against a cruel ticking clock takes a toll on Rhyme’s health. Soon Rhyme is fighting on yet another front — and his determination to work despite his physical limitations threatens to drive away his closest allies when he needs them most.
"Hell's Kitchen"
Jeffery Deaver originally wrote this under the name William Jefferies.
Every New York City neighborhood has a story, but what John Pellam uncovers in Hell’s Kitchen has a darkness all its own.
The Hollywood location scout and former stuntman is in the Big Apple hoping to capture the unvarnished memories of longtime Kitchen residents such as Ettie Washington in a no-budget documentary film.
The Hollywood location scout and former stuntman is in the Big Apple hoping to capture the unvarnished memories of longtime Kitchen residents such as Ettie Washington in a no-budget documentary film.
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| Not quite awesome, I think. But some good strong moments in all his books. |
As more buildings and lives go up in flames, Pellam takes to the streets, seeking the twisted pyromaniac who sells services to the highest bidder. But Pellam is unaware that the fires are merely flickering preludes to the arsonist’s ultimate masterpiece, a conflagration of nearly unimaginable proportion, with Hell’s Kitchen — and John Pellam — at its blackened and searing epicenter
"The Copper Bracelet"
A peaceful picnic in the French countryside explodes in violence. A mysterious assassin hisses a deadly threat. And events are set in motion that could propel India and Pakistan down the road to nuclear confrontation.
A peaceful picnic in the French countryside explodes in violence. A mysterious assassin hisses a deadly threat. And events are set in motion that could propel India and Pakistan down the road to nuclear confrontation.
Two years after the events of "The Chopin Manuscript," former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton and his Volunteers once again must crack a secretive conspiracy that not only threatens their lives, but the stability of the world.
Their race against time will take them from London to the U.S. to Russia and beyond. And at the heart of it all is one question: what is the secret of the Copper Bracelet?
Sixteen of the world’s greatest thriller writers collaborated on "The Copper Bracelet." Once again, as he did with "The Chopin Manuscript," Jeffery Deaver wrote the first chapter.
Then, each successive author wrote a chapter in turn, finally returning it to Deaver to complete this thrilling sequel. "The Copper Bracelet" was written by: Jeffery Deaver, Gayle Lynds, David Hewson, Jim Fusilli, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, David Corbett, Linda Barnes, Jenny Siler, David Liss, P.J. Parrish, Brett Battles, Lee Child, Jon Land and James Phelan. Jim Fusilli was the Project Editor.
Sorry to say, the combination of writers did not work for me. I could not follow the plot. Seems like a terrible waste of talent.
"Manhattan is My Beat"
Sorry to say, the combination of writers did not work for me. I could not follow the plot. Seems like a terrible waste of talent.
"Manhattan is My Beat"
Five feet two inches of slick repartee, near-purple hair, and poetic imagination; 20-year-old Rune hasn't been in Manhattan for very long. But she's crafty enough to have found a squatter's paradise in an empty TriBeCa loft, and a video store job that feeds her passion for old movies.
It's a passion she shares with her favorite customer, Mr. Kelly, a lonely old man who rents the same video over and over. The flick is a noir classic based on a real-life unsolved bank heist and a million missing dollars. It's called "Manhattan Is My Beat."
It's a passion she shares with her favorite customer, Mr. Kelly, a lonely old man who rents the same video over and over. The flick is a noir classic based on a real-life unsolved bank heist and a million missing dollars. It's called "Manhattan Is My Beat."
That's the tape Rune is picking up from Mr. Kelly's shabby apartment when she finds him shot to death and Rune is certain the key to solving the murder is hidden somewhere in the hazy, black-and-white frames of Mr. Kelly's beloved movie…
Assisted by Fred Dellray, Mel Cooper and Lon Sellitto (suffering from a severe case of shattered nerves due to a near miss by the killer), Rhyme and partner Amelia Sachs work frantically to learn who the hit man and his partner are and when they will strike next, all the while trying to crack a very “cold” case: Rhyme believes that Geneva may have been targeted because of a paper she’s writing about her ancestor, Charles Singleton, a former slave who was instrumental in the civil rights movement in the 1860s, but who was arrested for theft and disgraced.
"The Twelfth Card"
A high-school girl in Harlem, Geneva Settle, is the target of a ruthless professional killer—Thompson Boyd—who has been hired to murder her for reasons unknown. His first attempt, in a deserted museum early one morning, is a failure but it’s clear to Lincoln Rhyme that he’s going to strike again, from clues the killer leaves behind, one of which is the twelfth card in the tarot deck, The Hanged Man, whose meaning resonates eerily throughout the story.
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| Learn about Harlem Renaissance. |
In his correspondence Charles wrote about a “secret,” that could have tragic consequences if revealed. This secret, which Rhyme is convinced will provide the key to why Geneva is in danger, revolves around some mysterious doings in the area known as Gallows Heights, a neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that in the 1860s was a tense mix of wealthy financiers, civil rights leaders, political crooks like Boss Tweed, and working-class laborers and thugs. What was the truth behind the crime Charles was accused of? And what was his secret? Does it have to do with stolen gold? Or does it have a far broader implications?
Other complications keep the pot boiling: Rhyme is struggling through extensive therapy; will it have any effect on his quadriplegic conditions? And fiercely independent Geneva Settle battles both the killers and her protectors to maintain order in her life so that she can escape from Harlem to college and Europe as soon as possible.
"The Twelfth Card" takes place over two days’ time and is Deaver’s typical cat-and-mouse chase, culminating in several unguessable twists and turns. And, yes, for anyone wondering, readers will finally learn the answer to the missing-shoe murder from the final chapter of The Vanished Man.
"The Blue Nowhere"
When a sadistic hacker, code-named Phate, sets his sights on Silicon Valley, his victims never know what hit them. He infiltrates their computers, invades their lives, and lures them to their deaths. To Phate, each murder is like a big, challenging computer hack: every time he succeeds, he must challenge himself anew— by taking his methodology to a higher level, and aiming at bigger targets.
Desperate, the head of The California State Police Computer Crimes Division frees Wyatt Gillette, imprisoned for hacking, to aid the investigation — against the loud protests of the rest of the division. With an obsession emblematic of hackers, Gillette fervently attempts to trace Phate’s insidious computer virus back to its source. Then Phate delivers a huge blow, murdering one of the division’s own — a “wizard” who had pioneered the Internet — and the search takes on a zealous intensity.
Gillette and Detective Frank Bishop — an old-school homicide cop who’s accustomed to forensic sleuthing — make an uneasy team. But with a merciless and brilliant killer like Phate in their cross hairs, and his twisted game reaching a fever pitch, they must utilize every ounce of their disparate talents to stop him.
