The Cutting Edge (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel, 15)

THE CUTTING EDGE starts as a rather traditional serial killer mystery with a little Jeffery Deaver thematic interest. A diamond cutter is murdered, along with two of his young customers. So, we learn a little about how the diamond trade works.

When Amelia walks the scene she learns that two possible witnesses are missing. One had a meeting just prior to the murders. The other, with the first initials “VL” was shot during the murders.

Since he has his own point of view, we learn this is the diamond cutter's assistant, Vimal. A subplot is Vimal's relationship with his father, also a diamond cutter, who wants Vimal to follow in his footsteps. Vimal has other ideas. He wants to be a sculpter, like Michaelangelo, who saw a piece of granite or marble as an image that needed to be released, like the statue of “David”.

Soon, the term kimberlite becomes important. There is some digging going on in Brooklyn where a geo-thermal project is going on (Kimberlite, the stone diamonds come from was found there.) But, apparently, a gas line is cut and two people are killed, forcing the city to shut down the project. We thought we were dealing with a psychopath who had something against young couples who were defiling the earth by misusing diamonds.

A little past midpoint Deaver throws another wrench into the works. A lawyer asks Lincoln to research the case against his client, a notorious Mexican drug smuggler, El Halcon. For some reason Lincoln takes the case, earning the enmity of law enforcement operations who want El Halcon put in a maximum security prison.

Okay, the last doesn't seem to have anything to do with either the diamond murders or the geo-thermal digging. When I first read it, I thought it was an unnecessary sidetrack. But it's just another one of Deaver's wild twists and it leads to the resolution of the whole case.

As I said, this isn't an ordinary mystery, because we learn something about diamonds, but just when we think we know who did what, Deaver adds another character at the end who planned the whole thing. I had no trouble keeping track of these people; I just thought there were too many masterminds involved. And the last one may have been a cliffhanger, an attempt to get you to read the next book. It's a kind of threat.

Well, sometimes one reads a book (even Deaver is not immune) that is decidedly boring & (for the most part until well past the midpoint) predictable. This is one of those. Not to mention that the premise of the Russian bad guy (yawn) is rather outlandish.
In your hunt for a good mystery, avoid this one.
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It certainly looks like I'm in the minority here, but I can't fathom how this book is getting the 4+ reviews it seems to be getting. The plot is ludicrous, inconsistencies abound, and it's just plain boring. It's very seldom that I don't finish a book, but half way through this one, and that was it. There was no way I was going to waste another several hours on more of the same.

Rhyme ends up the hero, but novel doesn't develop his mastery. Too many needless detailed descriptions of things not germane to the story. Also, Deaver's fascination with the heroine's car is way overdone. Intricate story/mystery, but poorly delivered.

I can't afford to buy books anymore. I wait to borrow them from my local library. I have read everything by Jeffery Deaver, and have loved them all. The last book he wrote, was not his best, and so far I'm finding that this book is also not his best. I just started reading it, I'm only on chapter 6, out of 7c chapters. But so far, it is really boring. I hope that it gets better soon. I may be time to drop Jeffery Deaver from my reading list.

Jeffery Deaver has a vivid Imagination. Read all of his "Lincoln Rhyme Novels." They keep you thinking and I am never sure who did it....

After I read the last couple of Lincoln Rhyme novels, I promised myself I wouldn't read anymore. But I read this one anyway. I think I've had enough. I only gave this as many as 2 stars because I was able to read it to the end.

These novels always spend a lot of time explaining things. In this book we learn about diamond mining, diamond cutting, geothermal energy extraction, the enmity between Muslims and HIndus in Kashmir, earthquakes, and sculpting. Some of this explaining was due to say, evidence being examined. A lot of it was just Deaver telling us stuff he thought we needed to know. Did all this stuff hang together into a story? Well, sort of.

The story is a classic onion layered story. Peel away one layer, the seemingly senseless murder of a diamond cutter, and another layer, the finding of diamonds at a geothermal mining operation is revealed. It was all very implausible to me. It was like Deaver had taken a random Wikipedia walk and wove together a story.

Oh, and if you manage to stick through to the end, there's an entirely unexpected tie in to a past Rhyme bad guy.

My biggest problem with these stories has always been the cliff-hanger chapter endings. For example, in this one, Amelia gets pitched face first into a mud pool. She struggles, gets sucked further in, can't hold her breath, and the chapter ends. Then several paragraphs into the next chapter, she's rinsing mud out of her hair while telling the paramedics that she's ok. This happens several times (although not always with Amelia). In another, a retired couple couple is trying to escape from their burning house. It's quite dramatic. They make it to the garage door and hit the button on the door opener. The chapter ends. We don't learn their fate until chapters later, and in an off-hand fashion.

And worst of all, Lincoln and Amelia are hardly in the story. Most of it is told from the viewpoint of a witness and the bad guy.

Never again.

Although I loved the Lincoln Rhyme early books, I'm quitting this about 3/4 through (page 314). I don't need to finish this complex nonsense, so it's going back to the library.

Terrible! I don't read fiction to learn minute details about diamonds, don't care if a character watches a Samsung TV, or any of the zillion other useless details in this story. And box cutters! Shades of 09/11! I enjoy a story that outlines a plot and proceeds to the solution. This was boring, took four days to read and very little pleasure. I'm just glad this book was a "used" gift; I didn't waste my month on it! Jeffrey Deaver moves to the bottom of my preferred reading list!

I love the Lincoln Rhyme series and eagerly await each new installment. I usually stay up all night and devour each book. I hate to say that I didn't love this book. Something was missing: Lincoln and Amelia weren't their usual scintillating selves, the lack of tension was evident. I was more interested in Vimal than in Lincoln and that is not how a Rhyme book should go. I love the twists and turns but this one just fell short.