The coffin dancer

Forensic scientist Lincoln Rhyme became a quadriplegic in an accident at a murder site, but the injury seemed only to intensify his powers of deduction and ability to get inside the heads of the killers he tracks from his state-of-the-art home laboratory. His beautiful protege, Amelia Sachs, serves as his arms and legs at the murder sites, bagging evidence and scoping out clues. In their latest case, the two team up to find a diabolical killer they've dubbed Coffin Dancer. The killer has a chameleonlike ability to change identities and murder methods, and he leaves behind no clues--not even the tiniest skin flake or clothing fiber. His latest mission is to destroy three witnesses who are set to testify against an international arms smuggler. Dancer has only 48 hours to accomplish his task before the trio appears before the grand jury. He's blown one witness apart using a booby-trap bomb. Can he get to the other two and kill them before they testify? In a classic battle of wills, Rhyme's dazzling forensic skills are pitted against Dancer's diabolical cunning. Intense, violent, and heart-stopping, Deaver's latest will leave readers gasping at the stunning climax. This one's already on the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Reader's Digest A-lists. It belongs on every library's A-list, too. --Emily Melton

Deaver has come a long way since his Rune novels (Manhattan Is My Beat; Death of a Blue Movie Star), and the measure of his growth as a writer is on display in this taut sequel to the bestselling The Bone Collector, starring quadriplegic forensic specialist Lincoln Rhyme. Rhyme is called in to track down a contract killer, known as the Coffin Dancer, who has been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the upcoming federal trial of Philip Hansen. The trial is set to begin just 48 hours from the novel's (literally) explosive beginning. Rhyme and his beautiful assistant, detective Amelia Sachs, have just that much time to ID the Dancer and keep him from murdering the remaining witnesses. Yet Rhyme has personal reasons to track the Dancer, which come out in just one of the revelations and reversals that punctuate this thriller like a string of firecrackers. The pace, energized by Deaver's precise attention, never flags; and if the romantic angle is a little obvious (Rhyme's seeming concern for one of the Dancer's female targets sparks Amelia's jealousy), Deaver manages to renovate many of the hoariest conventions of the ticking-clock-serial-murder subgenre. Another original renovation is his Nero Wolfe-ish Rhyme‘a detective who lives the life of the mind by necessity, not choice, and who thinks of everything but can't even pick up a phone without help. Trust Deaver's superb plotting and brisk, no-nonsense prose to spin fresh gold from tired straw. Literary Guild main selection; Doubleday Book Club featured alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Club. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this follow-up to Deaver's The Bone Collector, Lincoln Rhyme and detective Amelia Sachs return in a story filled with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the first. Not much can divert Rhyme from a close examination of evidence, and the smaller and more obscure the evidence, the better. When presented with the opportunity to hunt an elusive and seemingly unstoppable assassin known to law enforcement simply as the Coffin Dancer, Rhyme can't resist. The hit man has killed once, and Rhyme and Sachs have 48 hours to prevent him from killing again. Alexander Adams's narration leans more to cold reading than actual performance; he uses distinct voices only when absolutely necessary and accents only when specifically called for in the text. Although Deaver paints interesting characters, the real thrust of the book is in a plot teeming with action, suspense, and surprises. Adams's style is a perfect fit, as a more animated narration only could have detracted from the urgency and entertainment. Recommended for popular fiction collections.--Jennifer Belford, Addison P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist of The Bone Collector (1997), returns to confront the uncannily resourceful killer who's been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the last hours before their grand jury testimony. The first witness is no challenge for the Coffin Dancer, so dubbed after his distinctive tattoo: He simply plants a bomb on Hudson Air pilot/vice-president Edward Carney's flight to Chicago and waits for the TV news. But Ed's murder alerts the two other witnesses against millionaire entrepreneur-cum-weapons-stealer Phillip Hansen, and also alerts the NYPD and the FBI that both those witnesses--Ed's widow, Hudson Air president Percey Clay, and her old friend and fellow-pilot Brit HaleŽare on the hot seat. With 45 hours left before they're scheduled to testify against Hansen, they bring Rhyme and his eyes and ears, New York cop Amelia Sachs, into the case. Their job: to gather enough information about the Coffin Dancer from trace evidence at the crime scene (for a start, scrapings from the tires of the emergency vehicles that responded to the Chicago crash) to nail him, or at least to predict his next move and head him off. The resulting game of cat and mouse is even more far-fetched than in The Bone Collector--both Rhyme and the Dancer are constantly subject to unbelievably timely hunches and brain waves that keep their deadly shuttlecock in play down to the wire--but just as grueling, as the Dancer keeps on inching closer to his targets by killing bystanders whose death scenes in turn provide Rhyme and Sachs with new, ever more precise evidence against him. Fair warning to newcomers: Author Deaver is just as cunning and deceptive as his killer; don't assume he's run out of tricks until you've run out of pages. For forensics buffs: Patricia Cornwell attached to a time bomb. For everybody else: irresistibly overheated melodrama, with more twists than Chubby Checker. (First printing of 100,000; Literary Guild main selection)

Forensic scientist Lincoln Rhyme became a quadriplegic in an accident at a murder site, but the injury seemed only to intensify his powers of deduction and ability to get inside the heads of the killers he tracks from his state-of-the-art home laboratory. His beautiful protege, Amelia Sachs, serves as his arms and legs at the murder sites, bagging evidence and scoping out clues. In their latest case, the two team up to find a diabolical killer they've dubbed Coffin Dancer. The killer has a chameleonlike ability to change identities and murder methods, and he leaves behind no clues--not even the tiniest skin flake or clothing fiber. His latest mission is to destroy three witnesses who are set to testify against an international arms smuggler. Dancer has only 48 hours to accomplish his task before the trio appears before the grand jury. He's blown one witness apart using a booby-trap bomb. Can he get to the other two and kill them before they testify? In a classic battle of wills, Rhyme's dazzling forensic skills are pitted against Dancer's diabolical cunning. Intense, violent, and heart-stopping, Deaver's latest will leave readers gasping at the stunning climax. This one's already on the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Reader's Digest A-lists. It belongs on every library's A-list, too. ((Reviewed June 1 & 15, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

If you could imagine James Bond as Brenda K. Starr and Sherlock Holmes as a quadriplegic with a penchant for solving arcane forensic clues, this suspenseful cat-and-mouse exercise should be easy to enjoy. This is Deaver's second title (after Bone Collector, LJ 2/1/97) featuring the dynamic duo of detective Lincoln Rhyme and the gutsy redhead Amelia Sachs. After a suspicious bombing of a company aircraft, the New York metropolitan area becomes the stomping ground of the crafty hit-man-of-many-faces, The Coffin Dancer. He matches wits with officers Rhyme and Sachs as he comes ever closer to his next targets. Quick to the punch, The Coffin Dancer is diabolically packed with the good stuff: cover-ups, mystery, action. A perfect selection for mainstream fiction collections. [Previewed Ahmad Wright, "Library Journal" Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews

Deaver has come a long way since his Rune novels (Manhattan Is My Beat; Death of a Blue Movie Star), and the measure of his growth as a writer is on display in this taut sequel to the bestselling The Bone Collector, starring quadriplegic forensic specialist Lincoln Rhyme. Rhyme is called in to track down a contract killer, known as the Coffin Dancer, who has been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the upcoming federal trial of Philip Hansen. The trial is set to begin just 48 hours from the novel's (literally) explosive beginning. Rhyme and his beautiful assistant, detective Amelia Sachs, have just that much time to ID the Dancer and keep him from murdering the remaining witnesses. Yet Rhyme has personal reasons to track the Dancer, which come out in just one of the revelations and reversals that punctuate this thriller like a string of firecrackers. The pace, energized by Deaver's precise attention, never flags; and if the romantic angle is a little obvious (Rhyme's seeming concern for one of the Dancer's female targets sparks Amelia's jealousy), Deaver manages to renovate many of the hoariest conventions of the ticking-clock-serial-murder subgenre. Another original renovation is his Nero Wolfe-ish Rhyme a detective who lives the life of the mind by necessity, not choice, and who thinks of everything but can't even pick up a phone without help. Trust Deaver's superb plotting and brisk, no-nonsense prose to spin fresh gold from tired straw. Literary Guild main selection; Doubleday Book Club featured alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Club. (Aug.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews