The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme, Book 1). This item is unavailable.The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme, Book 1)

Once the nation's foremost criminologist and the ex-head of NYPD forensics, quadriplegic Lincoln Rhyme abandons his forced retirement and joins forces with rookie cop Amelia Sachs to track down a vicious serial killer. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo.

Deaver (A Maiden's Grave) is too fond of gimmicks. They range in this novel from the extreme (his detective here, Lincoln Rhyme, is a quadriplegic who can move only one finger) to the moderately eccentric (beautiful policewoman Amelia Sachs, who acts as Rhyme's arms and legs, suffers from arthritis). And his villain, a serial killer who models his crimes on ones he finds in a book on criminal life in old New York, has an uncomfortable way of slaying each of his victims in ways guaranteed to stop the heart or turn the stomach: buried alive, flayed by high-pressure steam, eaten by hungry rats, burned alive, attacked by mad dogs. All this takes place in the course of one busy New York weekend as the killer helpfully leaves playful little clues as to where he's going to strike next and Rhyme uses his immense savvy (and a battery of computerized testing tools) to figure it out. The whole affair, in fact, is incredibly silly, though the headlong narrative, with Sachs arriving in the nick of time (driving at 80 mph through New York streets) to perform rescues that seem to belong in a comic strip rather than a novel, never lets up, and there is plenty of genuine forensic knowledge in evidence. There are dramatic switcheroos up to the very last page, and a climactic battle to the death that might make even teenage boys wince. For it seems to be at that kind of readership?uncritical and doting on violence?that the novel is aimed. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; film rights sold to Martin Bregman and Universal Pictures; simultaneous Penguin audio. (Mar.) FYI: An HBO movie of A Maiden's Grave, starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, will air in January 1997.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A quadriplegic criminalist hunts the most elusive quarry of his career: a serial killer who leaves clues at each crime scene allowing the cops to head off the next murder--if they can decode them in time. With nothing left to live for since an accident ended his forensic career and his marriage, bearish Lincoln Rhyme has made an appointment with Dr. William Berger, of the suicide-friendly Lethe Society. But Rhyme's old NYPD colleague, Det. Lon Sellitto, just happens to breeze in, uninvited and unwelcome, minutes before Berger does, and talks Rhyme out of suicide and into spearheading the hunt for Unsub 823, the demonic cabbie whose fares often face nightmarish scenarios of torture and death. Though he shows no mercy to his victims, Unsub 823 obligingly salts each crime scene with cryptic clues to his next, clues that whet Rhyme's jaundiced appetite and give him the hope of saving currency trader T.J. Colfax, German emigr‚e Monelle Gerger, elderly William Everett, and widowed Carole Ganz and her daughter. It's not long before Rhyme's blood is pumping again, and he's persuaded beautiful Amelia Sachs, the Major Crimes officer who preserved the first crime scene long enough to gather a few precious scraps of evidence, to put off her medical transfer to Public Affairs and become his eyes, ears, and nose at each gory scene. Working feverishly against a series of impossible deadlines, Sachs and Rhyme piece together a profile of the perp's appearance, his lodgings, his car, his habits, and the id‚e fixe that drives him: He believes he's the Bone Collector, a demented ghoul who preyed on New York's dead and near-dead at the turn of the century, determined to free his victims from this mortal coil by stripping them to ageless bone. Deaver (A Maiden's Grave, 1995, etc.) marries forensic work that would do Patricia Cornwell proud to a turbocharged plot that puts Benzedrine to shame. (First printing of 100,000; film rights to Universal; $100,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

With an initial print run of 100,000 copies and the film rights sold to Universal, it's obvious that somebody has high expectations for this book. Whatever success it achieves, however, will not be based on its literary merits. Cardboard characters are propelled by clunky prose through a silly plot. A quadriplegic detective comes out of retirement to try to catch a brilliant serial killer (a word to the wise: if you know anyone who's brilliant, watch your back!) who's re-creating murders from the turn of the century. Deaver did his homework, and he doesn't let a drop of research go to waste--arcane technical and historical factoids are dumped all over the pages. Oh, well. There's going to be a lot of publicity behind The Bone Collector, including a tie-in with an HBO movie based on another Deaver novel, A Maiden's Grave (1995), due to air in January, so it will no doubt move. June Vigor

The author of The Maiden's Grave (LJ 9/1/95) launches a new series featuring an unusual protagonist?a paralyzed criminologist who teams up with rookie cop Amelia Sachs to unearth a particularly vicious killer called "the Bone Collector."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.