The Coffin Dancer (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel) - Hardcover

Deaver, Jeffery

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684852853 ISBN 13: 9780684852850

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1998

Synopsis

Detective Lincoln Rhyme, the foremost criminalist in the NYPD, is on the hunt for an elusive murderer, the Coffin Dancer. He's a brilliant hitman who changes his appearance even faster than he adds to his trail of victims, only one of whom has lived long enough to offer a clue: the assassin has an eerie tattoo on his arm of the Grim Reaper waltzing with a woman in front of a casket.

Like his previous bestselling novels A Maiden's Grave and The Bone Collector, Jeffery Deaver's latest psychological thriller combines spine-chilling forensic detail with a turbocharged plot. In The Coffin Dancer, Rhyme, tragically paralyzed from a line-of-duty accident, continues to tutor his beautiful protégé, Detective Amelia Sachs, in the art of criminal hunting. Rhyme is certain he's seen this killer before, and his suspicion of an earlier encounter fuels a bitter taste for vengeance. When the chameleonlike assassin targets three federal witnesses for death, the stakes reach a new high. Rhyme's brainpower and Sachs's legwork are the only tools they have to track the cunning murderer through the subways, parks, and airports of a darkly painted New York City. And they have only forty-eight hours before the Coffin Dancer strikes again.

With The Coffin Dancer, Deaver -- already an internationally bestselling author whose acclaimed novels have been translated into a dozen languages -- uses his trademark plot twists to keep this fast-paced, masterly thriller steamrolling along with breathtaking speed. This is page-turning suspense of the highest order.

About this title

Review:

This return engagement for quadriplegic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme is strong on forensic details as Rhyme tracks an elusive assassin known only by the tattoo that gives this fast-paced thriller its title.

Three witnesses to a murder could put a millionaire arms dealer behind bars for good. When one of them, the co-owner of Hudson Air, is blown up in a plane bombing with the Dancer's fingerprints all over it, the FBI takes the other witnesses into protective custody. Only Rhyme can decipher a crime scene, read the residue of a bombing, or identify a handful of dirt well enough to keep up with the killer. Helped by Amelia Sachs, his brilliant and able-bodied assistant, Rhyme traces the Dancer through Manhattan streets, airports, and subways. The psychological tension builds rapidly from page one all the way to the stunning and unexpected denouement. At the same time, Jeffery Deaver slowly develops the against-all-odds love affair between Rhyme and Sachs. Fans of Patricia Cornwell and others in the growing subgenre of forensic thrillers will find a lot to enjoy in Deaver's latest. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Jeffery Deaver is the author of fourteen suspense novels. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. Universal Pictures is currently producing his latest, The Bone Collector, and HBO recently broadcast a film version of his 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684852853
• ISBN 13: 9780684852850
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368