What are you doing right now? Don't tell me, I'll just look it up.
Written: Aug 30 '09
Product Rating:
Pros: Well developed plot that is timely for today. Excellent characters.
Cons: None.
The Bottom Line: The Broken Window explores the dangers of the information age in a fictional format. It's another great novel 'Lincoln Rhyme' from Jeffery Deaver.
trailhound's Full Review: Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhym...
Imagine being accused of a crime you know you did not commit, but a whole pile of evidence ties you to the crime? The evidence was all gathered in a legitimate fashion and tested using the most highly-scientific methods. The evidence is so conclusive that your defense lawyer just rolls his eyes and groans when you proclaim your innocence. How could this happen? Only if someone knows everything about you – even what you are doing right now!
That's the theme explored in the novel Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver. In this fictional book, the computerized information age is explored in great and frightening detail, and the idea that pretty much everything you do is being recorded in a secret database will probably leave your hair standing on end (which will probably be duly noted and recorded as well). Broken Window continues the long running book series of Deaver featuring Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic who helps the police solve crimes by focusing on the minutest clues. In this book Rhyme's long, lost cousin Arthur has been tied to the murder of a young woman. And the evidence is so conclusive that it actually seems suspicious. How could someone as intelligent as his scientific-minded cousin Arthur leave behind that many clues while committing a grisly crime?
Aided by Amelia Sachs of the New York City police department, Rhyme convinces an array of police officers to look more deeply into the crime his cousin supposedly committed, and also look at cases that were similar. Lincoln soon devises his own clever plan to find out how the perpetrator is gathering personal and private information on people and then using it to frame them for crime that the perp is committing himself.
The book delves into the shadowy world of data collection, which ostensibly is used for detection of criminal activity (especially terrorism) and for more efficient marketing of products and services by business. However, Lincoln soon learns that when going about our daily lives, our movements and preferences are being tracked, recorded, and assembled for analysis. Credit card charges, time cards, websites visited, frequent flyer accounts, cameras at toll booths, phone calls, library cards, TV channels watched and chips embedded in everyday products are recording a trail of your whereabouts, which makes it easy for some lunatic to manipulate evidence at a crime scene that points to you.
Like most Jeffery Deaver books, Broken Window stretches fiction right to the edge of believability. While it's possible for all this data on individuals to be tracked, it's unlikely (at least now) that someone could easily access all of it from one database. That being said, identity theft has become a huge danger in the internet age! But Deaver has the ability to craft a story that takes reality just a smidgen over the line and make it seem realistic.
The characters in Broken Window are all outstanding. The main characters such as Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs and Rhyme's personal assistant Thom, are well developed in this long-running series. In this book Deaver further develops Lincoln's character too by exploring his teen years, family life, and a twist of fate that ultimately led him into police work and a crippling accident that landed him nearly totally immobile. The creepy perpetrator in this book is also developed enough to be believable. A master of manipulation, the character secretly collects dozens of old products which are squirreled away in his decrepit home.
I've read quite a few of Jeffery Deaver's books and The Broken Window ranks up there with his best. The plot is very well developed, the characters believable, and the mystery is wrapped up tightly enough that it's hard to guess the outcome. The book stretches on for nearly 600 pages (in paperback), so you get many hours of entertainment too. I recommend The Broken Window for any fans of crime novels, police procedurals, the information age, or just good old mysteries.
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