gamblin_man's Full Review: Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey: A Lincoln Rhyme...
I keep forgetting about Jeffrey Deaver and his ongoing character Lincoln Rhymes. It is to my detriment that I do so. But I picked up a paperback recently of The Stone Monkey. It was a good read, for me anyway, one who likes science and logical progressions in mystery solving.
For those who don’t know Lincoln Rhyme a brief introduction follows. Linc, as his friends call him, was a crime scene investigator for the NYPD. He, in fact, headed the department and had written books on the subject of investigation through forensic evidence. An accident has rendered him a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair with only some head movement and one finger with some limited motion available. He, of course, had to retire, but his drive and determination has made him a major consultant to police agencies from his home. He stays in his apartment, but his protege and love interest, Amelia Sachs, still a NYPD officer, goes to the crime scenes and “walks the grid” as his alter-ego.
He only takes the most baffling cases and he has found in Sachs someone who is fearless and dedicated in her pursuit of the truth from forensics. She has an uncanny ability to get into the mind of the people they are trying to find. In this case, named Ghostkill on the whiteboard where all the evidence is logged and categorized, we are taken into the murky world of illegal immigration from China and the “snakeheads” who ply this trade.
The story begins with a major snakehead called “Ghost” by the international agencies who are trying to catch him. He is a master criminal and has worldwide warrants out for everything from murder to smuggling “piglets”, the name for the Chinese refugees trying to get to “The Beautiful Country”, America, from their homes in China. Linc has been asked to help figure out how, where, and when the next load of piglets is coming to New York because of a tip that the Ghost is coming with this load. Using his talents and his contacts he discerns that they are currently on a ship that left from Russia and will land near the Eastern tip of Long Island. A Coast Guard cutter is set to intercept the ship.
The Ghost locks the piglets in the hold, blows up the ship, and escapes in a rubber raft. So do some of the piglets. They land in very rough seas and the Ghost begins to track and kill them. Some escape and so does the ghost. Sachs walks the grid to gather the forensic evidence and the chase is on. The goal is to catch the Ghost and to save the few piglets who survived. Any more would ruin the story for you so I will stop here.
Each step of the chase yields more clues which are dutifully detailed on the whiteboard by Thom, the long-suffering aide to Lincoln Rhymes. Each section of the book ends with the latest listing from the whiteboard for us who are trying to solve the crime along with Lincoln. Maybe just a tease or two more is in order. One of the survivors shows up at Lincoln Rhymes apartment. He is a Chinese police officer chasing the Ghost. Another member of the task force assembled to capture this elusive bad guy is an INS agent with a personal grudge.
The action is intense as the clues are gathered and more mayhem is unleashed and more crime scene grids walked, or swum.
Between reads I forget the intensity of both the main theme from the logical mind of Jeffrey Deaver, but also the strong sub-plots of interactions between Linc and Sachs. This is a great read for those who like mysteries or action/adventure. I recommend it heartily.
Mystery & Detective - General Fiction - Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, along with INS, are in hot pursuit of the criminal mastermind and internationa...More at Barnes and Noble
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