The Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel - Softcover

Deaver, Jeffery

4.05

19,146 ratings by Goodreads

9781439189139: The Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439189137 ISBN 13: 9781439189139

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2011

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Lincoln Rhyme is back, on the trail of a killer whose weapon of choice cripples New York City with fear.

The weapon is invisible and omnipresent. Without it, modern society grinds to a halt. It is electricity. The killer harnesses and steers huge arc flashes with voltage so high and heat so searing that steel melts and his victims are set afire.

When the first explosion occurs in broad daylight, reducing a city bus to a pile of molten, shrapnel-riddled metal, officials fear terrorism. Rhyme, a world-class forensic criminologist known for his successful apprehension of the most devious criminals, is immediately tapped for the investigation. Long a quadriplegic, he assembles NYPD detective Amelia Sachs and officer Ron Pulaski as his eyes, ears and legs on crime sites, and FBI agent Fred Dellray as his undercover man on the street. As the attacks continue across the city at a sickening pace, and terrifying demand letters begin appearing, the team works desperately against time and with maddeningly little forensic evidence to try to find the killer. Or is it killers . . . ?

Meanwhile, Rhyme is consulting on another high-profile investigation in Mexico with a most coveted quarry in his crosshairs: the hired killer known as the Watchmaker, one of the few criminals to have eluded Rhyme's net.

Juggling two massive investigations against a cruel ticking clock takes a toll on Rhyme's health. Soon Rhyme is fighting on yet another front--and his determination to work despite his physical limitations threatens to drive away his closest allies when he needs them most . . .

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Review:

Jeffery Deaver is still top of the tree, as his new novel, The Burning Wire, pleasurably reaffirms. Deaver remains as adept at keeping our pulses at an accelerated rate with quite as much assurance as he demonstrated in his earlier books (and his grand tally of novels is approaching thirty). The new book carefully and skilfully puts into place all the touches that have made the Lincoln Rhyme series so popular, and Deaver ensures his narrative is au fait with technology (always a strong suit of his books – there’s a lot of it in this one, be warned).

The citizens of New York are under attack, with the electricity grid being controlled to grim criminal ends. Hideous, electricity-induced death is raining down, and the natural assumption is that it is the work of terrorists. The CIA and the FBI are pursuing this avenue, but quadriplegic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme (Deaver’s long-term protagonist) is studying the forensic evidence, helped (as usual) by the resourceful Amelia Sachs and a talented team (among its number, FBI agent Fred Dellray). The attacks, Rhyme realises, are not terror-inspired, but the work of a brilliant criminal, whose manipulation of electricity in all its forms will give Rhyme and his co. their biggest ever headache.

Storytelling of a compelling order is the name of the game here, with suspenseful revelations hitting the reader at calculated intervals. And along with the crack use of narrative technique, there's the usual on-the-hoof, economical characterisation for Lincoln Rhyme and his team; just enough to make us think this is not somewhere we’ve been before.

Jeffery Deaver has spread his non-Rhyme wings before with his Kathryn Dance books, but the author has now signed on to continue Ian Fleming’s durable James Bond franchise. His Bond book is currently labelled Project X, but until it appears, The Burning Wire reminds us that the author is one of the surest scribes in the thriller field. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

Another corker . . . precision-engineered to keep the reader turning the pages without a hitch (Evening Standard on THE BROKEN WINDOW)

One of the great detective teams of contemporary crime fiction come storming back . . . Deaver never disappoints, and this novel shines (Mark Timlin in Independent on Sunday on THE BROKEN WINDOW)

The best psychological thriller writer around (The Times)

The most creative, skilled and intriguing thriller writer in the world . . . [Deaver] has produced a stunning series of bestsellers with unique characterisation, intelligent characters, beguiling plots and double-barrelled and sometimes triple-barrelled solutions. (Daily Telegraph)

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