This is the first of Deaver's books to feature Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic criminologist. Rhyme has given up on life, literally. He has decided to have a doctor help him commit suicide. But a spree killer who starts taking tourists just before a big event at the UN and a gutsy female officer with problems of her own pique his interest.
Deaver's protagonist would provoke no sympathy if we weren't handicapped. He's a jerk, plain and simple. A brilliant jerk, but a jerk. Amelia Sachs, the female cop, isn't much more likeable. But their dedication to figuring out the clues, both the planted and accidental, keeps the story racing forward.
This is a page turner. The pace is often frenetic, but Deaver slows down--sometimes excruciatingly so--when the killer is at his cruelest. The book has a different outcome than the movie of the same name. I did feel a bit cheated by the big reveal, because it felt like the villain was a character who was chosen simply to throw the reader a curve.
I'd recommend it as a lesson in the art of pacing.
Definitely not a cozy.
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