โ Scribed by Deaver, Jeffery
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
It's the night of the full Cold Moon -- the month of December according to the lunar calendar. A young man is found dead in lower Manhattan, the first in a series of victims of a man calling himself the Watchmaker. This killer's obsession with time drives him to plan the murders with the precision of fine timepieces, and the victims die prolonged deaths while an eerie clock ticks away their last minutes on earth. Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs and the rest of the crew are tapped to handle the case and stop the Watchmaker and his partner, Vincent Reynolds, a repulsive character with a special interest in the female victims of the killer. Amelia is not only Lincoln's eyes and ears at crime scenes on the Watchmaker case, but she's now running her own homicide investigation--her first case as lead detective. The policewoman's unwavering efforts in pursuing the killers of a businessman, who left behind a wife and son, sets into motion clockwork gears of its own, with consequences reaching to people and events that will endanger not only many lives but Lincoln's and Amelia's future together.
Mantegna applies his considerable talent to this latest Lincoln Rhymes mystery. Deaver's quadriplegic detective, Rhymes and his partner, Det. Amelia Sachs, attempt to stop a sadistic serial killer known as the Watchmaker, so named because he leaves specially constructed clocks at the site of each of his murders. However, as so often happens in Deaver's stories, not everything is even close to what it seems. Mantegna gives a smooth, no frills performance. He keeps the vocal deviations for each character to a minimum, concentrating instead on making their dialogue natural and realistic. His low-key delivery works especially well when describing the point of view of the Watchmaker or when delving into the inner thoughts of the killer's sexually deviant accomplice. The scenes between the two villains as they calmly discuss the fates of their intended victims, both before and after death, are genuinely chilling in their execution. Deaver fans will be pleased to have Rhymes and Sachs back in a new intricate and compelling thriller, with Mantegna once again serving as an excellent narrator.
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Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist, returns for a new round of crime busting. Rhyme, who has starred in a handful of very good novels, is one of the mystery genre's most interesting and out-of-the-ordinary series leads, a brilliant investigator who rarely leaves his specially equipped home. He's partnered (personally and professionally) with Amelia Sachs, a former fashion model and first-rate detective. Here, while assisting Rhyme in tracking down a sadistic serial killer who calls himself the Watchmaker, Sachs is also running her own murder investigation, her first as lead detective. Fans of the series will welcome the chance to see Sachs spread her wings, and spending time with the likably crusty Rhyme is always a delight. As always, Deaver's dialogue is exceptionally realistic, and his plotting is devilishly intricate. Recommended for fans of the Rhyme novels (naturally) and readers who like their thrillers laced with wit and sharp characterizations. David Pitt
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๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
On a freezing December night, with a full moon hovering in the black sky over New York City, two people are brutally murdered -- the death scenes marked by eerie, matching calling cards: moon-faced clocks inves-tigators fear ticked away the victims' last moments on earth. Renowned criminologist Linc