From Booklist Someone is murdering people, killing them by injecting poison as he creates exquisitely detailed tattoos on their bodies. Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist, and his team race against time to identify and stop the villain before the body count rises. To make matters more perplexing, the unknown perpetrator appears to have learned how to keep his crime scenes clean and evidence-free, from Rhyme’s own writings (specifically an article about an old case involving a killer known as the Bone Collector). How do you catch a killer who’s learned how not to get caught by the best criminalist in the business? Meanwhile, the Watchmaker, the fiendishly clever killer introduced in 2006’s The Cold Moon (but referred to in intervening books), still haunts Rhyme, even after the man’s death in prison, making it hard for the investigator to devote his full concentration to the murder case at hand. Another suspenseful and twist-filled entry in this always-exciting series. --David Pitt "Outstanding...the endgame remains in doubt to the end. Deaver proves himself a grandmaster of the genre as each surprise leads to an even bigger surprise, like a series of reverse Russian nesting dolls."― Publishers Weekly -- Starred Review "Jeffery Deaver has brought a unique voice to the thriller genre, mixing high energy action into novels about a brilliant criminalist...Lincoln Rhyme has become one of the genre's most iconic characters."― South Florida Sun Sentinel "Deaver's ability to tell the reader everything and still manipulate the story with diabolical twists is the sign of a master at work. Readers unfamiliar with Lincoln Rhyme will find a detective that rivals Sherlock Holmes, and fans will enjoy the familial and reflective aspects of previous cases."― Associated Press "Like all of his books, the storytelling is intricately plotted, with plenty of feints, misdirections and endgame twists to keep the reader guessing."― Raleigh News and Observer "For those who have never read a Deaver book this is definitely the time to start. Once you are hooked you will find yourself searching for everything he has written in the past and that is plenty. He is one of the premiere writers of mysteries and each and every one of his books is a reading pleasure from beginning to end.So get a copy of THE SKIN COLLECTOR and settle yourself in for hours of reading satisfaction."― Huffington Post "Another suspenseful and twist-filled entry in this always-exciting series."― Booklist "[A] page-turner full of Deaver's signature moves: frantic pacing, forensic minutiae, blindsides, gotchas and hairpin plot turns...a true return to classic form for Deaver."― Winnipeg Free Press "'Deavotees' will expect and gratefully receive the many twists and sudden turns...No one is better at narrative misdirection. Just at the point you think "That's impossible!" Deaver demonstrates the exact opposite...Once again the depth of his research and characterisation has created a superb example of modern American Gothic."― The Evening Standard (UK) "This is Deaver at his very best and not to be missed by any thriller fan."― Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Kill Room - A "Best Summer Book of 2013" "Chillingly effective...Jeffery Deaver's quadriplegic detective has never been better...Equal parts Marathon Man and top-notch political thriller, this is Deaver at the top of his game. Rhyme remains the most original hero in thriller fiction today who may have met his match in Swann. Not to be missed."― Providence Sunday Journal on The Kill Room "Jeffery Deaver has written an ace thriller to keep readers guessing and gasping with his latest Lincoln Rhyme thriller, The Kill Room . A master magician with words, Deaver misdirects with one tale while what's really going on is just off the reader's radar...The numerous twists and turns in The Kill Room are so fast and furious that by the novel's end, the reader will be dizzy - and clamoring for more."― Associated Press Jeffery Deaver is the #1 international bestselling author of over thirty novels and three collections of short stories. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, The Bone Collector , was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He's received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world. He lives in North Carolina. Read more
Features & Highlights
In his classic thriller
The Bone Collector
, Jeffery Deaver introduced readers to Lincoln Rhyme-the nation's most renowned investigator and forensic detective. Now, a new killer is on the loose: a criminal inspired by the Bone Collector. And Rhyme must untangle the twisted web of clues before the killer targets more victims-or Rhyme himself. The killer's methods are terrifying. He stalks the basements and underground passageways of New York City. He tattoos his victims' flesh with cryptic messages, using a tattoo gun loaded with poison, resulting in an agonizing, painful death. When a connection is made to the Bone Collector-the serial killer who terrorized New York more than a decade ago-Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are immediately drawn into the case. Rhyme, Sachs, and the NYPD must race against time to answer the many questions the investigation uncovers: Whom will the killer attack next? What is the message behind the victims' tattoos? Does the killer's own inking--a fanged centipede sporting a woman's face--hold any significance? And what is his ultimate mission? As time runs out, Rhyme discovers that the past has returned to haunt him in the most troubling way imaginable...
Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Reviews
★★★★★
1.0
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This series has become just plain silly, and this book is a great example of why
Deaver's series centered on Lincoln Rhyme started out really well. Crippled criminalist pitted against brilliant and twisted criminals, using his mind and Amelia Sachs's physicality to bring the Bad Guys to their just rewards.
This particular book is a great example of how badly the series has devolved.
Many chapters end on a cliffhanger note, particularly once the Villain has targeted Rhyme and Sachs as potential victims. And yet - lo and behold! - we find out in the next chapter that the Villain's evil plans have been thwarted yet again!
How, you ask? Who the heck knows? Rhyme inevitably and invariably manages to seem to divine what the Bad Guy's doing just in the nick of time through some absolutely implausible and unbelievable "logic" that leads him to conclude EXACTLY what the Bad Guy's doing.
Heck, Rhyme's talents are wasted as a criminalist. He should be in Vegas raking in millions, or even better, predicting winning lottery numbers every week and rolling in cash.
It's SO bad and silly that in these books the Bad Guys have basically all turned into Wile E. Coyote to Rhyme's Roadrunner.
And then Sachs is always driving her muscle cars around at the speed of sound through New York's busy streets, including on the sidewalks to bypass traffic, and manages to never injure anyone while doing so. I guess she's doing her Vin Diesel imitation or something, but frankly, that meme's become a very tired cliché.
I don't know if Deaver's become lazy or bored or overly formulaic or what, but this series - and this book - has jumped the shark so badly that it doesn't even land in the same body of water.
Needless to say, I am NOT recommending it.
21 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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UGH
Jeffery Deaver is now off of my "favorite authors" list. Ugh. The Skin Collector is nothing more than a delivery system for hateful rants against Christians, conservatives, gun supporters, and all things opposing the liberal agenda. Deaver has trotted out every stereotypical cliché ever used to denigrate those to the right of center and has even added a few perverse characteristics of his own... like female pedophilia. Didn't see that coming! There is not one likeable character in this book. It's like a cloud of nasty, petty, impatience has enveloped the townhouse and everyone who enters it turns ugly. There were many times that I was tempted not to finish listening to the entire thing but I had enjoyed previous Rhyme stories and kept hoping for it to get better. Needless to say, this book was a disappointment on many levels. From the excruciatingly detailed descriptions to the impossibly convoluted plot, I could barely endure listening to it until the end.
7 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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I will never read another Deaver book
This is the last Deaver book I will ever read. He has managed to ruin and degrade the brilliant Lincoln Rhyme by portraying him as a left wing ideologue. Why was that necessary? This is a direct quote from this book: "Mention the word terrorism and many Americans, perhaps most, think of radicalized Islamists targeting the country for its shady self-indulgent values and support of Israel. Lincoln Rhyme knew, though, that those fringe Muslims were a very small portion of the people who had ideological gripes with the United States and were willing to express those views violently. And most terrorists were white, Christian card-carrying citizens."
Really? Did Deaver miss what was happening in the Middle East when this book was published in 2014 and prior to that?? Did he sleep through 9/11?? Did he miss Fort Hood? He has the audacity to try to support that weak premise by citing The Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh. Seriously??
Deaver has been apolitical in the past and he should have remained as such. He touched briefly on left-wing ideology in The Kill Room, but it didn't begin to compare to the in-your-face approach in this book. I read for pleasure and to escape the political insanity, discord and polarization happening in the world today. I don't need it shoved in my face. This is my last Deaver book, it was nice while it lasted. It is also precisely why I quit reading John Grisham. Keep your political views to yourself. You will sell more books.
7 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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So long, Deaver.
I used to enjoy Deaver's twists and turns, but I guess I've read so many of his novels by now that I saw most of his little tricks coming from a mile away this time. More importantly, by foisting his untrue, anti-conservative, Christian-bashing and far-leftist views on a formerly constant reader, he's lost another fan. I wouldn't give a hoot about his whacko opinions, so long as he kept them out of his novels. He can preach and lie to someone else from now on. I gave up on Stephen King for just this reason. People have always read Deaver's novels for his whiplash, rollercoaster plotting, but over his past several books it's become more and more apparent that he's a one-trick pony. Truth be told, his writing has always been sub-par. His descriptions and dialogue would be more at home in YA novels than in contemporary adult fiction. His novels have become as formulaic as Dan Brown's: just pick a subject and spew facts about it. With Brown, it's always travel and history. With Deaver, it's usually forensics and esoterica. Ho hum. I'd rather read a textbook and then a decent thriller by a talented writer. The party's over, Deaver. Your novels, like your politics, have become tired and ineffective. Goodbye.
7 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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Devious Deaver
I got this book from the library. I'm glad I didn't spend money on it.
Deaver crafts a truly hateful antagonist and begins linking him to conservatism, subtly at first and increasingly throughout the story.
Chapter 59 is stunningly appalling in it's full-throated liberal rant. Deaver conflates deviously demented belief and behavior with Christianity. Deaver has become a mouthpiece for anti-Americanism.
My suggestion is this: go to the library and pick up this book. Don't check it out, though. Just start reading chapter 59 and you'll see what this book is really about.
7 people found this helpful
★★★★★
3.0
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An Excellent Author Who Has Played Out His Formula
I have been a huge fan of Jeffery Deaver since he wrote THE BONE COLLECTOR. His detailed descriptions of the collection and analysis of forensic evidence reminded me of the deductive skills of Sherlock Holmes, supplemented by occasional flashes of brilliance that allowed him to connect the clues. The introduction of Locard's transfer of trace evidence (between the victim and doer) also impressed me. And the compilation of huge data bases was extremely useful when it was necessary to compare collected evidence to computer data in order to pin down a location, tire mark, type of shoe, etc.
But now it just seems to be a repetition of a once successful formula that has now simply become tiring. I never thought that I'd say this but I'm done reading Jeffery Deaver. There is so much fresh material out there from other authors that I've had the pleasure to come across, either through the Amazon Vine program or from other reviewers who piqued my interest. You might want to check out George Pelecanos, William Lashner, Lawrence Block, and Robert McCammon among others.
7 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Portrait of an Underground Artist as a Killer
Although I am a big Deaver fan, this is an uneven entry in the Lincoln Rhyme mystery series. The villain is a highly skilled tattoo artist who stalks his victims in the forgotten underground tunnels and vaults of Manhattan and dispatches his victims using poison instead of ink. The title is a reference to an earlier case (and Deaver’s first Lincoln Rhyme book) known as “The Bone Collector.” It should more properly have been titled “The Underground Man,” because it turns out that the lethal tattoo artist has some other nasty ideas for underground terror. Deaver always excels at turning the tables on the reader, but the book’s multiple “endings” are too disjointed for my taste, particularly with the reappearance of the murderous Watchmaker from Rhyme’s earlier book, “Cold Moon.” Both villains manage to outwit Rhyme and team, for awhile, and nearly all of them become targets. Ultimately disappointing.
5 people found this helpful
★★★★★
3.0
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I am both perpetually disappointed and perpetually pleased
With both affection and resignation, someone once said of Christie that "yet again
she shuffles the same tatty deck of characters, and yet again she pulls a Three Card
Monte on us all".
I feel the same about Deaver. As with most Christie novels, I am both perpetually
disappointed and perpetually pleased. I know exactly what to expect, I know it will
be a short and compelling read (a weekend at most), and in Mr Deaver's case I know
that there will be one loose thread, perhaps spawning many future novels.
Like Christie, Deaver is a master plotter, and like Christie all the plots of his
novels (but not his short stories) follow the same pattern:
* In the opening chapters, a throwaway reference will be made to some ongoing or
unsolved crime that one of our minor heroes is involved in, such as jaywalking. This
eventually will turn out to be the mainspring of the vast and intricate criminal
enterprise that lies behind the entire book's plot.
* About one-third of the way into the book, the hero (Lincoln Rhyme, whatever), will
have pieced together enough clues to deduce that the villain is carrying out
dastardly plot A, to kill all the panda bears in the New York Zoo. The effort to
reach this deduction will involve many pages of exposition, often including lengthy
descriptions about gas chromatography. Many brand names will dropped along the way.
At this point, Mr Deaver takes a break from writing to call his agent to ensure the
product-placement cheques have been deposited in his account.
* About 100 pages on, the hero deduces that plot A is actually a cover for a totally
different plot B. Plot A was only a cover for the real Plot B: to remove gender from
the French language. There will be much exposition about gender in French, and the
Merovingian kings. The bodies start piling up. The hero will find traces of Camembert
or Brie on their bodies.
* The bomb to explode the French language is thwarted at the last minute, relying on
a hugely improbable set of coincidences. Mr Deavers's hero will bark "Do it now!" to
various underlings. The hero is held in such respect by all and sundry that the
entire governmental apparatus of the United States, from the doofus running a post
office in Buttfrack, Arkansas, to the president of the republic itself responds with
alacrity. In a response unprecedented in American history, several hundred officials
from a dozen different agencies will converge within minutes in immaculate precision
on the site(s) our hero calls for. More bodies are found.
* Of course, this turns out to be a diversion by the criminal mastermind. A further
50 pages later the hero deduces that plot B is actually a cover for a totally
different plot C. Plot C involves American white supremacists trying to kill all the
hedgehogs in Scotland. The traces of Camembert on the earlier bodies were in fact
planted by the devious killer, but our hero now finds traces of haggis.
* In the final chapters of the book, plot C turns out to be only a cover for plot D.
Plots A, B and C were created by the criminal mastermind to divert investigation from
his jaywalking offence casually mentioned in the first 25 pages: this is plot D. Even
the haggis trace was planted! Can you believe it?
* All the plots rely on the villain and his minions carrying out their work to the T.
There is no such thing as Murphy's Law in Mr Deaver's alternate universe.
If the villain would only bring their organisational super-powers to the United Nations,
we would have world peace by the end of the year.
In the case of this book, the villain spends years constructing an elaborate series
of crimes and escapades with a collection of unstable crazies so that he can thwart one
single person (who is not the hero). I think.
But still, it was a lot of fun, and if you like Mr Deaver, well worth reading.
Garry
4 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Wow, Special Thanks to Jeffery "The Poo-Poo Machine" Deaver, And His Stinky Undies Hanger!
Sometimes, let's be honest. You'd absolutely love to go out and buy that new bestseller from the author you always read. Right? But then there are times when you borrow it from the local library, it is a page-turner for the most part, and then you get plain ticked. Why do you get ticked? Because there's a dirty pair of underwear hanging where a conclusion should've been! That's what "The Skin Collector" felt like to me. Because Deaver wrote it quite well, and he usually does so, but I wasn't satisfied with this one.
Once again, a killer is out there, and he's inspired. What would be a killer's inspiration? How about "The Bone Collector?" Welcome to more mayhem, Lincoln Rhyme, because instead of fooling around with bones, this killer is dealing with works of art. And those works of art happen to be tattoos. These tattoos kill people, and they have special tattoo messages. (What? It appears as though I was impressed? Yeah! I was!)
And the investigation is on! This dude throws Rhyme and Sachs for loops, messing with heads, and all of a sudden, you realize that our heroes have dealt with this crazy nut-job before. So, he's good with tattoos, he's a killer, and he doesn't mind including a centipede with a woman's face to make a point. But what's the point? These bad guys always seem to have one. Don't they?
I think that Deaver had a good plan for this one. But I think he got on some kind of Deaver-Do-Good soapbox from time to time that he had no business getting on, because in a real debate, that soapbox would've busted out from under his ankles. He sends his readers a message, and that's fine. But he also cut things short before he shouldn't have. And for that, I'm glad I didn't spend my money on it!
4 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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Leave Out the Left-Wing Politics
I generally like thrillers, but I prefer them to be non-political. This book was disappointing, as it was written by a former liberal journalist that injects his liberal politics into the plot. All of his antagonists are "right-wing." All of his protagonists espouse left-wing propaganda, but without ever being labeled "left-wing." I think the point of this book is to get people to vote Democrat. Sorry, about that. I have been unemployed for the last 4 years. I will never vote Democrat again for as long as I live, no matter how many mystery thrillers Mister Deaver pens.
