The Watchmaker's Hand

October 1, 2023
Quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme returns in this top-shelf thriller. Political terrorists claim responsibility for a New York City construction crane's collapse and then make a series of demands in exchange for staving off further destruction. Lincoln gets on the case and while investigating uncovers evidence to suggest that the Watchmaker, a brilliant psychopath determined to kill Lincoln in previous series titles (see, for example, 2006's The Cold Moon), might be behind the plot, putting into action his most brilliantly convoluted plan yet. With New Yorkers on high alert, the clock is ticking for Lincoln to solve this one with his longtime partner, Amelia Sachs. The Rhyme novels are remarkably consistent: the writing is superb, the characters intriguing, the stories spellbinding, and the plot twists shocking. Fans of Deaver's long-running series (the first novel, The Bone Collector, appeared in 1997) will want to read this one as soon as they can. Expect high demand.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2023
Step right up to see quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme match wits with Charles Vespasian Hale, the Watchmaker, who terrorizes New York while he prepares to attack his nemesis head-on. Whoever sabotaged Garry Helprin's crane, disturbing its delicate balance until it crashed 22 stories onto East 89th Street, has sent a demand that the city immediately stop building skyscrapers to accommodate the elite and earmark billions for affordable housing. The manifesto, signed The Kommunalka Project, threatens to sabotage a new high-profile building project every day until the city comes around, which of course it's not going to do. Instead, Det. Lon Sellitto of the NYPD's Major Crimes Unit entreats Rhyme, his old partner, to help identify the perpetrators before they can do any more damage. Meanwhile, Hale, identified from the beginning as the prime mover behind the plot, kills a broker who saw something incriminating that nobody else can identify and an accomplice he'd been using as an inside man who could get him close enough to Rhyme to kill him. Working with both advanced technologies and hydrofluoric acid, an ancient poison time has never improved, Hale keeps a step ahead of his pursuers, constantly planting new false leads, while Rhyme, together with Det. Amelia Sachs--his wife and forensic partner--and diverse members of the NYPD, the FBI, and the ATF work feverishly to uncover the real motive behind the hollow pretense that the terrorists are out for social justice. As usual, Deaver pulls so many rabbits from his hat that you come to await each new one impatiently, and his final surprise, though not entirely predictable, isn't all that surprising either. An also-ran among Deaver's Greatest Hits that would do any lesser suspense-monger proud.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 15, 2024
Undercooked plotting muddies Deaver’s bloated 16th thriller featuring Lincoln Rhyme (after The Midnight Lock), in which the quadriplegic NYPD detective faces off against a master criminal from his past. At the start, Rhyme is hoping to close a months-old case involving the theft of confidential records about the city’s infrastructure. The investigation takes on added urgency when someone sabotages the counterweight systems on a construction crane in Manhattan, killing one worker. After that attack, the mayor receives an email from an anonymous group called the Kommunalka Project threatening a similar disaster every 24 hours if he doesn’t create an affordable housing nonprofit and transfer a list of properties to its operations. While Rhyme races to anticipate the Kommunalka Project’s next move, evidence emerges indicating that his old adversary, a brilliant murderer known as the Watchmaker, might be pulling the strings. Deaver occasionally achieves the grandeur of the best hero-villain rematches, but too often, he takes the wind out of his sails with lazy plot contrivances, including tough to swallow lapses in judgment from the otherwise unassailable Watchmaker. Only diehard series fans need apply. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary.