The Devil's Teardrop: A Novel of the Last Night of the Century (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel) - Hardcover

Deaver, Jeffery

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684852926 ISBN 13: 9780684852928

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1999

Synopsis

In the final hours of December 31, 1999, the Washington, D.C., police are called in to investigate a horrifying mass murder and must try to prevent further killings, and their only clue is a ticking clock. 150,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

Jeffery Deaver is the author of fourteen suspense novels. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. Universal Pictures will release The Bone Collector in September 1999, and HBO broadcast a film version of A Maiden's Grave (under the title Dead Silence). Deaver was born in Chicago, attended the University of Missouri and received his law degree from Fordham University in New York. In 1990 he quit practicing law to write full-time. He lives in California and Virginia.

Reviews

Deaver's betwixt-and-between thriller pits the FBI and all its buddies against a blackmailer who's threatening terrorist attacks on revelers welcoming the millennium in the nation's capital. The blackmail scheme couldn't be simpler: a half-human killer called the Digger, who's already established his murderous credentials in a rush-hour massacre in a Metro station, will attack again at 4:00, 8:00, and midnight of January 1, 2000, unless a $20 million ransom is delivered to his accomplice by noon. Mayor Gerald Kennedy, against all advice, prepares to pay the ransom, but his agonizing and his precautions are both wasted, since the accomplice, Gilbert Havel, won't be picking up the moneyhe's been run down and killed by a truck. This monkey wrench means that the Digger, who's essentially unreachable by any other human being, is still wandering the streets, waiting for the deadline for his next assault. Enter certified document examiner Parker Kincaid, ex-FBI, who braves the wrath of his ex-wife Joan (she's got both eyes cocked for evidence that his job is putting their children in harm's way), to help the Agency establish a profile of the two conspirators based on the one piece of physical evidence they have: the ransom-demand note. Naturally, Parker strikes up more than a friendship with Margaret Lukas, the agent heading the operation; naturally, Deaver has some nasty twists up his sleeve. This time, though, as if he knows that the case is less surprising and suspenseful than his two similar cases starring paralyzed New York criminalist Lincoln Rhyme (The Bone Polisher, 1997; The Coffin Dancer, 1998), Deaver restricts Rhyme to a telephone cameo. Fans of Rhyme will miss him, of course; more unfortunately, they'll suss out Deaver's biggest surprise long before they ought to. What's left is sturdy, reliable, ticking-clock thrillsjust not as many of them as Deaver serves up at his best. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA-A gripping thriller that grabs readers' interest on page one and doesn't let go until the last exciting word. Parker Kincaid is a retired FBI forensic document examiner who is compelled to put himself and his family at risk in order to help save the lives of hundreds of Washington, DC, residents. It is the last day of 1999 and a grisly machine-gun attack in the Dupont Circle subway station has left dozens dead and wounded. Authorities have been notified that the killing spree will continue every four hours unless the mayor pays $20 million in ransom. When the lead terrorist is killed in a hit-and-run accident on his way to the money drop, the ransom note becomes the FBI's sole piece of evidence. Intricate forensic details are explained in easy terms so that uninitiated readers will understand every clue. With its fast-moving story line, this novel will take teens on a roller-coaster ride of adventure with twists and turns that lead up to the surprising conclusion.
Anita Short, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

starring Denzel Washington.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Suspense fans everywhere and Deaver's fans in particular will appreciate and enjoy the best-selling novelist's latest well-crafted tale of mystery and terror. In "The Devil's Teardrop," a genius/madman/psychopath slaughters dozens of innocent people at a subway stop in Washington, D.C., and threatens to continue the bloodshed every four hours until his demands have been met. Deaver's signature plot technique is to focus on a particular crime-solving method (it was forensics in The Bone Collector, 1996). Here an FBI handwriting expert tries desperately to stop the murderer by decoding the hidden symbols in his demand letter. To add to the suspense, the clock ticks mercilessly, and the diabolically brilliant criminal has set up a series of false leads and mazelike traps, forcing the agents to waste precious time and grow increasingly agitated. Indeed, it seems that the suspect has actually infiltrated the FBI team. Deaver is at his best here, slowly revealing layer after layer of a twisting and turning plot and building in suspicion and tension very carefully, so that eventually there seems to be something suspicious about each character. Libraries will probably need more than one copy of this action-packed and well-written thriller. Kathleen Hughes

And the last night of the millennium, as fate would have it. One mass murder has already occurred, and as the countdown for New Years begins, the cops try to prevent a second massacre.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

The Digger's in town.

The Digger looks like you, the Digger looks like me. He walks down the wintry streets the way anybody would, shoulders drawn together against the damp December air.

He's not tall and not short, he's not heavy and not thin.

His fingers in dark gloves might be pudgy but they might not. His feet seem large but maybe that's just the size of his shoes.

If you glanced at his eyes you wouldn't notice the shape or the color but only that they don't seem quite human, and if the Digger glanced at you while you were looking at him, his eyes might be the very last thing you ever saw.

He wears a long, black coat, or a dark blue one, and not a soul on the street notices him pass by though there are many witnesses here -- the streets of Washington, D.C., are crowded because it's morning rush hour.

The Digger's in town and it's New Year's Eve.

Carrying a Fresh Fields shopping bag, the Digger dodges around couples and singles and families and keeps on walking. Ahead, he sees the Metro station. He was told to be there at exactly 9 A.M. and he will be. The Digger is never late.

The bag in his maybe-pudgy hand is heavy. It weighs eleven pounds though by the time the Digger returns to his motel room it will weigh considerably less.

A man bumps into him and smiles and says, "Sorry," but the Digger doesn't glance at him. The Digger never looks at anybody and doesn't want anybody to look at him.

"Don't let anybody..." Click. "let anybody see your face. Look away. Remember?"

I remember.

Click.

Look at the lights, he thinks, look at the...click...at the New Year's Eve decorations. Fat babies in banners, Old Man Time.

Funny decorations. Funny lights. Funny how nice they are.

This is Dupont Circle, home of money, home of art, home of the young and the chic. The Digger knows this but he knows it only because the man who tells him things told him about Dupont Circle.

He arrives at the mouth of the subway tunnel. The morning is overcast and, being winter, there is a dimness over the city.

The Digger thinks of his wife on days like this. Pamela didn't like the dark and the cold so she...click...she...What did she do? That's right. She planted red flowers and yellow flowers.

He looks at the subway and he thinks of a picture he saw once. He and Pamela were at a museum. They saw an old drawing on the wall.

And Pamela said, "Scary. Let's go."

It was a picture of the entrance to hell.

The Metro tunnel disappears sixty feet underground, passengers rising, passengers descending. It looks just like that drawing.

The entrance to hell.

Here are young women with hair cut short and briefcases. Here are young men with their sports bags and cell phones.

And here is the Digger with his shopping bag.

Maybe he's fat, maybe be's thin. Looking like you, looking like me. Nobody ever notices the Digger and that's one of the reasons he's so very good at what he does.

"You're the best," said the man who tells him things last year. You're the...click, click...the best.

At 8:59 the Digger walks to the top of the down escalator, which is filled with people disappearing into the pit.

He reaches into the bag and curls his finger around the comfy grip of the gun, which may be an Uzi or a Mac-10 or an Intertech but definitely weighs eleven pounds and is loaded with a hundred-round clip of .22 long-rifle bullets.

The Digger's hungry for soup but he ignores the sensation.

Because he's the...click...the best.

He looks toward but not at the crowd, waiting their turn to step onto the down escalator, which will take them to hell. He doesn't look at the couples or the men with telephones or women with hair from Supercuts, which is where Pamela went. He doesn't look at the families. He clutches the shopping bag to his chest, the way anybody would if it were full of holiday treats. One hand on the grip of whatever kind of gun it is, his other hand curled -- outside the bag -- around what somebody might think is a loaf of Fresh Fields bread that would go very nicely with soup but is in fact a heavy sound suppressor, packed with mineral cotton and rubber baffles.

His watch beeps.

Nine A.M.

He pulls the trigger.

There is a hissing sound as the stream of bullets begins working its way down the passengers on the escalator and they pitch forward under the fire. The hush hush hush of the gun is suddenly obscured by the screams.

"Oh God look out Jesus Jesus what's happening I'm hurt I'm falling." And things like that.

Hush hush hush.

And all the terrible clangs of the misses -- the bullets striking the metal and the tile. That sound is very loud. The sounds of the hits are much softer.

Everyone looks around, not knowing what's going on.

The Digger looks around too. Everyone frowns. He frowns.

Nobody thinks that they are being shot. They believe that someone has fallen and started a chain reaction of people tumbling down the escalator. Clangs and snaps as phones and briefcases and sports bags fall from the hands of the victims.

The hundred rounds are gone in seconds.

No one notices the Digger as he looks around, like everyone else.

Frowning.

"Call an ambulance the police the police my God this girl needs help she needs help somebody he's dead oh Jesus my Lord her leg look at her leg my baby my baby..."

The Digger lowers the shopping bag, which has one small hole in the bottom where the bullets left. The bag holds all the hot, brass shells.

"Shut it off shut off the escalator A Jesus look somebody stop it stop the escalator they're being crushed..."

Things like that.

The Digger looks. Because everybody's looking.

But it's hard to see into hell. Below is just a mass of bodies piling up, growing higher, writhing...Some are alive, some dead, some struggling to get out from underneath the crush that's piling up at the base of the escalator.

The Digger is easing backward into the crowd. And then he's gone.

He's very good at disappearing. "When you leave you should act like a chameleon," said the man who tells him things. "Do you know what that is?"

"A lizard."

"Right."

"That changes color. I saw it on TV."

The Digger is moving along the sidewalks, filled with people. Running this way and that way. Funny.

Funny...

Nobody notices the Digger.

Who looks like you and looks like me and looks like the woodwork. Whose face is white as a morning sky. Or dark as the entrance to hell.

As he walks -- slowly, slowly -- he thinks about his motel. Where he'll reload his gun and repack his silencer with bristly mineral cotton and sit in his comfy chair with a bottle of water and a bowl of soup beside him. He'll sit and relax until this afternoon and then -- if the man who tells him things doesn't leave a message to tell him not to -- he'll put on his long black or blue coat once more and go outside.

And do this all over again.

It's New Year's Eve. And the Digger's in town.

While ambulances were speeding to Dupont Circle and rescue workers were digging through the ghastly mine of bodies in the Metro station, Gilbert Havel walked toward City Hall, two miles away.

At the corner of Fourth and D, beside a sleeping maple tree, Havel paused and opened the envelope he carried and read the note one last time.

Mayor Kennedy --

The end is night. The Digger is loose and their is no way to stop him. He will kill again -- at four, 8 and Midnight if you don't pay.

I am wanting $20 million dollars in cash, which you will put into a bag and leave it two miles south of Rt 66 on the West Side of the Beltway. In the middle of the Field. Pay to me the Money by 1200 hours. Only I am knowing how to stop the Digger. If you apprehend me, he will keep killing. If you kill

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684852926
• ISBN 13: 9780684852928
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400