KateTPZ's Full Review: Jeff Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop: A Novel of the...
A robot-like mad man opens fire with an Uzi in the metro center, killing and wounding dozens. A note is delivered to the mayor demanding $20 million or, the note warns, the killing will continue. The note's author, it says, is the only one who can stop the Digger, the madman with the Uzi. The mayor agrees to pay, but on the way to claim the ransom the extortionist is run over by a truck and killed. Now the FBI has to find this madman, the Digger, in order to stop the killing.
Strengths of the Author
Author Jeffery Deaver has always been a master at creating scary monsters and The Devil's Teardrop's Digger is no exception. The Digger doesn't think, in fact he seems incapable of rational thought. He simply does what "the man who tells him things" tells him to do. And when he doesn't get a call to tell him not to kill at the appointed hours, he kills again.
Jeffery Deaver has an amazing ability to write convincingly about law enforcement, both the people and the process. In The Devil's Teardrop we meet Parker Kincaid, a retired FBI documents examiner who now does private document authentication while raising his two children as a single parent. We meet Margaret Lukas, the FBI's acting special agent in charge, a woman cold and driven, with no social life to speak of. There are others, and they're all important, but Lukas and Parker are the central figures. Along with the Digger.
Also making a brief appearance in The Devil's Teardrop is Lincoln Rhyme, made famous in Deaver's The Bone Collector and other stories. As a fan of Deaver's books, this brief appearance brought a sense of comfort, of familiarity.
No Jeffery Deaver novel would be complete without subplots and a character's untold stories and this one doesn't disappoint. Parker Kincaid, for example, who has raised his children alone for four years, is now facing a custody battle with his selfish, non-maternal ex-wife. He gave up law enforcement because of his children; a case he was heavily involved in put his children at risk four years ago. He vowed to never let that happen again, to never allow anything to be more important to him that "the Whos," his nickname for his son and daughter.
But Parker does get pulled in on this case, despite rejecting the initial invitation. When he learns that a child has died as a result of the metro shooting, he arranges for a sitter and goes to work with Lukas and her team.
My Thoughts on The Devil's Teardrop
The field of forensics has always fascinated me. Some of my favorite authors in the crime thriller genre, such as Jeffery Deaver and Patricia Cornwell, feed that fascination and make it grow. Reading the details of Parker's study and analysis of the extortion note, for example, made me wish I had gone into law enforcement in the area of forensics. Lincoln Rhymes analysis of the trace evidence from the note, and the clues he was able to derive from them, held me spellbound.
The Devil's Teardrop is an exceptional crime novel, a suspense thriller that captured my attention in the first chapter and left me unable to do anything except read to the end by the mid-point. When an author and a book can do that to me, I know I've found a winner.
If you enjoy suspense, if you enjoy crime stories, if you enjoy forensics, or if you simply enjoy engaging characters and a well-told story, you will enjoy The Devil's Teardrop. Be prepared to suspend disbelief at the very end - Deaver resorts to an implausible scenario in wrapping up the story, but this scenario merely wraps up a sub-plot, not the actual crime story, and it has a romantic touch. I'll forgive him for a bit of silliness after 440 pages of suspense, excitement, and intensity. I suspect you will, too.
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