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52+ in 2011
Jul. 29th, 2011 10:13 amWhile LJ's been fubar'd and I've had insomnia, I plowed through all of Jeffrey Deaver's remaining Lincoln Rhyme novels. I already reviewed The Bone Collector and The Coffin Dancer. Here's a list of the rest:
58. The Empty Chair (2000)
59. The Stone Monkey (2002)
60. The Vanished Man (2003)
61. The Twelfth Card (2005)
62. The Cold Moon (2006)
63. The Broken Window (2008)
64. The Burning Wire (2010)
The great disadvantage of reading a series of novels like this in rapid succession is that you become clued into the author's themes, motifs and quirks very quickly. Deaver's recurring motif is a revelation halfway or 3/4 of the way through the book that upends everything you as the reader (and the characters) thought you knew about the situation. By the fourth Rhyme book, I was checking my progress through the pages and saying to myself "OK, it's about time for the game to change . . . " Expecting the game to change almost takes the fun out of it.
Deaver's other recurring device is to make the characters seem to be in danger, only to have the last minute revelation that the characters are smarter than you and figured out what was going on first. The "danger" was in fact an elaborate trap that the characters set for the bad guy. Again, having read the books in rapid succession and picked up on this motif, by the time Rhyme is facing his deadly opponent in the last pages of the book, I'm expecting that he's not in any danger.
That being said, these are enjoyable mystery/thrillers. Even though you *know* Deaver is going to pull the rug out from under you at some point, you don't know exactly how the game is going to change. Deaver is endlessly inventive in making situations seem like one thing and end up being another thing completely.
My major complaint about his earlier novels was that he drilled into the science more than I really needed in order to understand and enjoy the story. Much like Kathy Reichs, though, as Deaver continued the series, he focused more on the characters and let the science do its own talking. Occasionally he will embark on a dull as dishwater tangent (like airplane operations and mechanics in The Coffin Dancer), but I've gotten adept at skimming over those bits on the way to the more interesting stuff.
Deaver set up a new "expert" character, Kathryn Dance, in one of the Rhyme novels and now has a couple of books out about her. I'm going to give them a try.
58. The Empty Chair (2000)
59. The Stone Monkey (2002)
60. The Vanished Man (2003)
61. The Twelfth Card (2005)
62. The Cold Moon (2006)
63. The Broken Window (2008)
64. The Burning Wire (2010)
The great disadvantage of reading a series of novels like this in rapid succession is that you become clued into the author's themes, motifs and quirks very quickly. Deaver's recurring motif is a revelation halfway or 3/4 of the way through the book that upends everything you as the reader (and the characters) thought you knew about the situation. By the fourth Rhyme book, I was checking my progress through the pages and saying to myself "OK, it's about time for the game to change . . . " Expecting the game to change almost takes the fun out of it.
Deaver's other recurring device is to make the characters seem to be in danger, only to have the last minute revelation that the characters are smarter than you and figured out what was going on first. The "danger" was in fact an elaborate trap that the characters set for the bad guy. Again, having read the books in rapid succession and picked up on this motif, by the time Rhyme is facing his deadly opponent in the last pages of the book, I'm expecting that he's not in any danger.
That being said, these are enjoyable mystery/thrillers. Even though you *know* Deaver is going to pull the rug out from under you at some point, you don't know exactly how the game is going to change. Deaver is endlessly inventive in making situations seem like one thing and end up being another thing completely.
My major complaint about his earlier novels was that he drilled into the science more than I really needed in order to understand and enjoy the story. Much like Kathy Reichs, though, as Deaver continued the series, he focused more on the characters and let the science do its own talking. Occasionally he will embark on a dull as dishwater tangent (like airplane operations and mechanics in The Coffin Dancer), but I've gotten adept at skimming over those bits on the way to the more interesting stuff.
Deaver set up a new "expert" character, Kathryn Dance, in one of the Rhyme novels and now has a couple of books out about her. I'm going to give them a try.
