Sun 18 Apr 2010
Reviewed by Walter Albert: JEFFERY DEAVER – The Broken Window.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
JEFFERY DEAVER – The Broken Window. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, June 2008. Reprint paperback: Pocket Star, April 2009.
Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are drawn into the net of a cyberspace genius who steals personal information and uses it to frame innocent people for murders he’s committed.
Rhyme’s cousin Arthur is one of the victims, but it’s soon apparent that he’s only the latest in a series of brilliantly planned and executed frame-ups.
Throw in the powerful and sinister Strategic Systems Datacorp, and you have a thriller that seems to be everybody’s worst fear: the takeover of our lives by a corporation that knows everything about us and is prepared to use that information without any concern for the lives that might be destroyed by it.
Ultimately, the reader gets the feeling of being manipulated once too often by the ingenious Deaver, but up to that point it’s a hair-raising ride.
April 19th, 2010 at 2:53 am
I’ve never been able to get into Deaver, and it may be that manipulation thing you mention, but unlike some of the big names today he can write. Maybe I’ll try again. Just lay back and see where he takes me.
April 19th, 2010 at 6:27 am
If you mean by manipulation, too many twists and turns in the plot – he does have those in the first Deaver I’ve read. Here’s my review of Jeffrey Deaver’s thriller, The Stone Monkey
April 19th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Deaver’s not an author I’ve read much of, either. As a rule I don’t read novels about serial killers, and while I may be wrong about this, it’s my impression that that’s what most of Lincoln Rhyme’s cases are about.
I did start reading one of Deaver’s short story collections, but the blurb was along the lines of “You’ll never figure one of these out before the ending,” and when given a challenge like that and if I put my mind to it, I usually do.
Which was disappointing in a way, and I put the book aside and never finished it, alas.
— Steve
April 19th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
The serial killer thing kept me off too. I don’t mind some of the classics, but just in general it’s a sub genre that leaves me cold.