Product Description

On a freezing December night, with a full moon hovering in the black sky over New York City, two people are brutally murdered -- the death scenes marked by eerie, matching calling cards: moon-faced clocks inves-tigators fear ticked away the victims' last moments on earth. Renowned criminologist Lincoln Rhyme immediately identifies the clock distributor and has the chilling realization that the killer -- who has dubbed himself the Watchmaker -- has more murders planned in the hours to come.

Rhyme, a quadriplegic long confined to his wheelchair, immediately taps his trusted partner and longtime love, Amelia Sachs, to walk the grid and be his eyes and ears on the street. But Sachs has other commitments now -- namely, her first assignment as lead detective on a homicide of her own. As she struggles to balance her pursuit of the infuriatingly elusive Watchmaker with her own case, Sachs unearths shocking revelations about the police force that threaten to undermine her career, her sense of self and her relationship with Rhyme. As the Rhyme-Sachs team shows evi-dence of fissures, the Watchmaker is methodically stalking his victims and planning a diabolical criminal masterwork.... Indeed, the Watchmaker may be the most cunning and mesmerizing villain Rhyme and Sachs have ever encountered.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #284933 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-30
• Released on: 2006-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Deaver's twisty seventh Lincoln Rhyme novel (after 2005's The Twelfth Card) pits Rhyme, the quadriplegic NYPD detective, against a brilliant criminal mastermind called the Watchmaker. Assisted by his longtime partner, Det. Amelia Sachs, an expert at forensic analysis, Rhyme probes two bizarre murders linked by the killer's calling card—a clock left at the scene. The Watchmaker, as an ominous poem also left at the scene suggests, is bent on executing eight more people in a variety of ways intended to prolong their suffering. Deaver cleverly alternates between the Rhyme/Sachs team and the Watchmaker and his assistant, heightening tension by introducing the next targets and humanizing them. Sachs loses some focus when she also has to probe a suicide that she suspects is connected with some corrupt brother officers. Deaver fans won't be surprised that the investigations overlap, or that the several apparent climaxes are building to something more, but even they will be hard-pressed to peel back all the layers of the cunning plot at work beneath the surface. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist, returns for a new round of crime busting. Rhyme, who has starred in a handful of very good novels, is one of the mystery genre's most interesting and out-of-the-ordinary series leads, a brilliant investigator who rarely leaves his specially equipped home. He's partnered (personally and professionally) with Amelia Sachs, a former fashion model and first-rate detective. Here, while assisting Rhyme in tracking down a sadistic serial killer who calls himself the Watchmaker, Sachs is also running her own murder investigation, her first as lead detective. Fans of the series will welcome the chance to see Sachs spread her wings, and spending time with the likably crusty Rhyme is always a delight. As always, Deaver's dialogue is exceptionally realistic, and his plotting is devilishly intricate. Recommended for fans of the Rhyme novels (naturally) and readers who like their thrillers laced with wit and sharp characterizations. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Jeffery Deaver is the international number-one bestselling author of Roadside Crosses, The Bodies Left Behind, The Broken Window, The Sleeping Doll, The Bone Collector and twenty-one other suspense novels. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year. His novel The Bone Collector was made into a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington. Deaver was born in Chicago, attended the University of Missouri and received his law degree from Fordham University in New York. In 1990, he quit practicing law to write full-time. Readers can visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.

Customer Reviews

Still crazy after all these years....
Jeffery Deaver's newest story The Cold Moon feels a lot like his first Lincoln Rhyme novel The Bone Collector. Both stories deal with serial killers that have a taste for slow and unique deaths of their victims. Both killers like to bait the police and leave unique clues. I loved The Cold Moon for the same reason I became a hooked Deaver reader after The Bone Collector....Deaver delivers your monies worth with each page. He is like no other writer today.

In The Cold Moon Amelia Sachs, Rhyme's key investigator, and Rhyme must match wits with the Watchmaker, a killer that leaves a clock with each victim. In the course of the investigation, we discover that the killer purchased ten clocks leading the investigators to conclude that there is to be ten victims, not a pleasant thought given the killer's taste for suffering.

Deaver gives us more information about Amelia's history adding depth to her character. He also introduces Kathry Dance an investigator from the California Bureau of Investigation. Kathryn can smell a lie before you tell it. Deaver is a master storyteller who manages to deliver one twist after another and paces The Cold Moon with the reader in mind. I was surprised in the end.....

Chalk up another hit for Deaver.

Deaver and The Watchmaker will keep you guessing
In their seventh adventure, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs square off against a criminal who calls himself "The Watchmaker," a master assassin who gives new meaning to the phrase "a riddle wrapped up in an enigma"--you'll spend a lot of time trying to figure out what his game is, but to no avail. That's because The Cold Moon is quintessential Deaver--just when you're patting yourself on the back for having figured everything out, the author, through literary sleight of hand, throws you one of his trademark curveballs, keeping his heroes and his readers in a constant state of confusion and agitation right up until the very last pages of this swift paced and surprising thriller. Although this is what Deaver has become famous for, he seems to be having more fun than usual with the canny and devious Watchmaker, an observation borne out by the unusual ending the author provides.

Another character in The Cold Moon who seems to have found her way into Deaver's heart is consultant Kathryn Dance, the human lie detector who plays a key role in helping Rhyme and company frustrate the machinations of the Watchmaker. Dance, who works with the California Bureau of Investigation, is an expert in the field of kinesics, the science of body language, nonverbal gestures, postures and facial expressions by which a person manifests various physical, mental or emotional states, and communicates nonverbally with others. Deaver has told Mystery Scene magazine that he's already hard at work on a stand alone novel featuring Dance, tentatively titled The Sleeping Doll. If her solo adventure proves half as interesting and involving as the one she just shared with Lincoln Rhyme, readers should reserve their copies now.

Definitely not the best of the Rhyme series, but at least we meet the new protagonist: Kathryn Dance
No spoilers

I'm a huge fan of the Rhyme series and have enjoyed every book so far, rating each one at least four stars. However, I just can't do it for this one. My issue with this book was that all of the typical Deaver plot twists and turns and the "I didn't see that coming" occurrences were all packed into the last 1/4 of the book. In all of the other Rhyme books, there are twists throughout that keep you glued to it and turning the pages, but in The Cold Moon they just aren't there until the last stretch. Then, once you do get to the surprises, they stretch belief almost to it's breaking point.

If you're a Deaver fan, you have to read this book of course because it is the first to feature Kathryn Dance, the main character of his new series (the second book of the Dance series comes out in June 2007), who is presumably going to be taking the place of Lincoln Rhyme as the main protagonist in Deaver's books.

It isn't the best of the Rhyme books, and it hurts to only give it three stars being such a loyal Deaver fan, but it's was the low point in all of the Rhyme books in my eyes.