This is one of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme novels, about a quadriplegic criminalist who solves crimes from a forensic lab in his Upper West Side apartment, by Central Park. When Rhyme is called in after two apparent homicides in lower Manhattan Island, attributed to the self-named Watchmaker, he is irked that his offsider and girlfriend, Amelia Sachs, appears distracted by a seemingly commonplace suicide. At each murder scene, the Watchmaker leaves a poem and a distinctive clock. Deaver also introduces Kathryn Dance, his Californian FBI “kinesics” expert in body language and interrogation (his latest novel is about her). The cop story is counterpointed with the tale of a sex-crazed halfwit named Vincent Reynolds who is the sidekick (or perhaps dropkick) for the icy killer Gerald Duncan – aka the Watchmaker.

Title        

The Cold Moon

Author        

Jeffery Deaver

Year        

2006

Publisher        

Centre Point Large Print

Reading date        

Completed January 22, 2008

Genre

Detective

Plot

This is one of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme novels, about a quadriplegic criminalist who solves crimes from a forensic lab in his Upper West Side apartment, by Central Park. When Rhyme is called in after two apparent homicides in lower Manhattan Island, attributed to the self-named Watchmaker, he is irked that his offsider and girlfriend, Amelia Sachs, appears distracted by a seemingly commonplace suicide. At each murder scene, the Watchmaker leaves a poem and a distinctive clock. Deaver also introduces Kathryn Dance, his Californian FBI “kinesics” expert in body language and interrogation (his latest novel is about her). The cop story is counterpointed with the tale of a sex-crazed halfwit named Vincent Reynolds who is the sidekick (or perhaps dropkick) for the icy killer Gerald Duncan – aka the Watchmaker.

Characters

Rhyme is a deliberately dislikeable chap who is acid-tongued and super-critical of everyone around him. Sachs is more sympathetically written, but is afflicted with a crisis of confidence after she learns her father belonged to a team of corrupt cops. Dance and others in Rhyme’s coterie are largely two-dimensional - like characters in a script waiting for their actors to bring them to life. For much of the story, the most interesting characters are the simpleton Vincent and the evil Duncan – but ultimately they lack depth and development. The worst aspect of the story is that no one changes. Even Sachs’ moment of truth with her late father is a shallow and self-evident sleight of hand that offers no moral and emotional value. All of the characters left me cold.

Resolution

As you’d expect, Rhyme solves the riddle, although the climax has a spectacular kaboom moment that would look great on the big screen. No one important dies although Deaver titillates the reader with red herring threats of danger. It turns out that Duncan is a self-appointed assassin from the West Coast who takes on jobs for the thrill of the kill. But as this is just a plot twist whipped out with a bit of fanfare near the end, it is never explored or developed as a dimension of the character. It just is. After Rhyme’s detective work saves a bunch of military brass from being blown up, Duncan escapes - to kill another day? – while Rhyme and Sachs go back to their forensic drudgery.

Theme

The good guy wins because he is cleverer than the bad guy. D’oh!

Recommend

Not at all. While the plot is cleverly constructed, the book is about as satisfying and memorable as a Big Mac and fries. Despite it being a thriller, I found the last 100 pages a chore to read – and the previous 500 only a little better.

Footnote

I started reading another Lincoln Rhyme novel – The Blue Nowhere – just in case The Cold Moon was a dud. After 50 pages of clinical cleverness, I felt the same hunger for nutrition that was symptomatic of its predecessor, so I put it back on the bedside table and proceeded to read a history novel by James Lee Burke. Within one chapter, I cared more about his characters than I did in the entire Deaver novel.

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