Jeffery Deaver

Page Updated: 05/03/03

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Jeffery Deaver - Page 2

The Bone Collector

A Maiden's Grave

Praying for Sleep

First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (1997)

The Bone Collector
See Review by Carol Butterworth
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
Lincoln Rhyme was one of the world's foremost forensic criminalists, until a crime scene accident paralysed his spine. Quadriplegic, able to move only his head and shoulders and one finger, Lincoln Rhyme is bitter, his great mind trapped in his useless body. Rhyme is actually planning his suicide when he gets a call he; can’t ignore from his old partner on the force. A body has been found in a grave beside the railway in New York, and the dead man’ s colleague is still missing. The Bone Collector is a serial kidnapper, a very clever killer, and a man who dwells in the past. Rhyme has only a matter of hours to find the deliberate and obscure traces the murderer has left in order to find the Bone Collector’s next victim…
Spurred from his lethargy of spirits to accept the challenge, Rhyme chooses inexperienced female police officer Amelia Sachs to act as his arms and legs to walk the crime scenes. Rhyme can only whisper in her ear and let her do the work he spent a lifetime with.
As the minutes count down, Rhyme and Sachs and their team race to decipher the Bone Collector’s clues, but the killer has his own plans - and who the ultimate victim will be only he knows.
Deaver’s stunning new, novel combines the suspense and forensic savvy of Patricia Cornwell with the rich historical dimension of The Alienist, together with the staggering twists and turns of plot that are his own hallmark. No one will be able to put The Bone Collector down
‘I must say that Mr Deaver has made a very good fist of scaring the pants off his readers. One to be read during daylight hours, and most definitely not in a taxi.’ The Irish Times
‘Sophisticated chiller.... Compulsive reading. ‘ The Guardian
‘Undeniably effective’ The Literary Review
‘Those who were gripped by Deaver's last novel, A Maiden's Grave, will not be surprised at the double-double-take-finale, but I am willing to bet they still won’t guess it.’ The Times
‘Jeffery Deaver has produced one of the most explosive thrillers of the year Don 't miss it.’ Liverpool Daily Post
‘Engrossing, entertaining and fizzing with energy, this is a suspense thrill to keep narcolepts awake’ Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News

First British Edition Hodder & Stoughton (1995)

A Maiden's Grave
See Review by Ralph Lees
The countdown begins at noon ...... when two teachers from a school for the deaf and their students stop to help at a car crash on an isolated road.…
and are immediately captured by three escaped convicts. Stark against the sun-bleached prairie stands an ancient, disused slaughterhouse, a building that still reeks of decades of spilled blood. It is here that Lou Handy will bring his hostages.
Officials swarm in: local police, state troopers, politicians, the media, and the FBI, led by senior hostage negotiator Arthur Potter. Not everyone agrees that their primary aim should be to get the hostages out alive. And while the conflict outside continues, inside the slaughterhouse eight deaf girls and their teachers have never been more terrified and disoriented.
Potter’s excruciatingly tense verbal fencing draws him dangerously close to the convicts’ leader. One of the hostages, a young deaf teacher, also becomes a negotiator: from different sides of the barricade, the man who talks for a living and the woman whose world is silent both struggle to avert a blood bath. The wild card is the killer Handy.
Is Handy psychotic or a genius? Or is he pure evil, relishing the game he plays with the deaf girls’ lives? The only thing that seems clear is his threat: he will kill one innocent child and hour, on the hour, until his demands are met.
‘A stunner... most readers will be losing their sleep over Deaver’s outsized thriller’ Kirkus Reviews
‘Where this book really sings is in the psychology: Potter’s self-conscious exploitation of his own emotional vulnerability to empathise with the hostage-taker. His skill is to descend with the potential killer to a mutual resignation, while avoiding the danger of empathy turning into sympathy... Deaver knits a seamless fabric of tightening tension right up to an explosive double-whammy ending. A Maiden’s Grave is a gripping, human literary fugue that ends with a brilliant sleight of hand and an explosive punctuation mark. It is Deaver’s best book yet.’ The Times
‘The shifts in the balance of power and testing of limits between predator and prey build crisis after crisis into this excellent siege thriller’ Daily Mail
‘A real chiller, seething with violence and heart-stopping suspense... Deaver skilfully builds the tension ... to a climax, before adding a stunning twist to the story’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Outstanding... Deaver brilliantly conveys the tensions and deceit of hostage negotiations; he also proves a champion of the deaf; offering poetic insight into their world. Throughout, heartbreakingly real characters keep the wildly swerving plot from going off-track, even during the multiple-whammy twists that bring the novel, Deaver's best to date, to its spectacular finish.’ Publishers Weekly
‘Rivetingly and sensitively handled. Great entertainment. ‘ New Woman

Paperback - Coronet

Praying for Sleep
Michael Hrubek, a young schizophrenic, has escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane. And he's making his way toward Lis Atcheson, the teacher who testified at his murder trial. Four people race to intercept him before he reaches her. His psychiatrist; the hospital director; a professional tracker. And Lis's husband, who must get to Hrubek before the madman reaches his wife.
But Michael's mind - with its delusions of murder and betrayal - is crystal clear about one thing. He knows Lis better than she knows herself. And he carries with him a monstrous secret that will tear apart many lives during the course of this single horrifying night.
'Brilliant' Minette Walters
`Scary, smart, and compulsively readable' Stephen King
`Seldom have more twists and turns, or more harrowing suspense been packed into a single day - or between the covers of a single book . . . Superior’ James Paterson, bestselling author of Along Came A Spider