The Cold Moon by Jeffrey Deaver

Lincoln Rhyme has finally met his match – The Watchmaker.

Synopsis (taken from Jeffrey Deaver’s Official Website)

Lincoln Rhyme returns in The Cold Moon, a roller coaster of a thriller that pits Lincoln and Amelia Sachs against time itself.

On a freezing December night, with a full moon hovering in the black skies over New York City, two people are brutally murdered—their prolonged deaths marked by eerie calling-cards: moon-faced clocks ticking away the victims' last minutes on earth. More murders are planned, and Rhyme and his team have only hours to stop the icy-cold, brilliant Watchmaker, whose obsession with time drives him to plan his carnage with the precision of a fine timepiece. While the cat-and-mouse search for the killer proceeds, Amelia Sachs must balance her efforts to catch the Watchmaker with her job as lead detective on the first homicide case of her own, in which she unearths shocking revelations from the past that threaten to undermine her very relationship with Lincoln Rhyme.

An unlikely ally appears on the scene in the form of California Bureau of Investigation special agent Kathryn Dance, one of the nation's leading experts in interrogation and kinesics—body language. Despite Lincoln's skepticism about witnesses, and her distrust of physical evidence, the two form a curious alliance in the heart-stopping quest to find the Watchmaker.

The rest of the team is present too—tech-minded Mel Cooper, dogged Lon Sellitto, hip Fred Dellray, and the newest addition: rookie Ron Pulaski.

Deaver's lightning-fast prose keeps the two cases racing along in almost real time, with more plot twists and surprises than in any previous book of his, as we realize that the Watchmaker may not be simply a murderous lunatic, but a far more cunning villain than anyone could guess, and the most terrifying and mesmerizing bad guy to ever come from the mind of Jeffery Deaver.


My views:

If you are not familiar with the character of Lincoln Rhyme, here are a few details about him (taken from my good ol friend Mr. Wiki):

“Lincoln Rhyme is a character in a series of books by Jeffery Deaver. He is a retired criminalist who is a quadriplegic due to an accident during one of the crime scenes he was working on, in an underground subway. However, he can still move his left ring finger and has regained his grasping function in his right hand through NFS. He lives in a New York apartment, which overlooks Central Park. On his window sill there is a nest of peregrine falcons. In the 1999 film adaptation of The Bone Collector, he is portrayed by Denzel Washington.”

Despite Lincoln Rhyme’s disability, he is still a good, if not the best, forensic investigator. That is probably the reason why he is still hired to investigate criminal cases which other investigators deemed to be impossible. As much as I want to hate Rhyme’s pesky attitude, I could not help but feel awed by his coping with his disability. He might be weak physically, but he is a far cry from being an utterly useless person. His indifference might be his way of warning people not to take him lightly or worse feel sorry for him.

The Cold Moon is a chilling super thriller surrounding on a serial killer who is not only leaving a trail of dead bodies, but leaving dead bodies that are clearly brutally murdered that they are found in the most grotesque way possible. The serial killer, calling himself The Watchmaker, leaves behind moonfaced clocks ticking at the scene of his crimes so his victims can die slowly waiting for their lives to end while listening to the tick of the clock. He also has a partner, a sadistic rapist named Vincent, who has a history of abusing women since he was a teenager. This is by far the most ghastly murder cases I have encountered in my reading so far.

In Cold Moon, Amelia Sachs is given the chance to work on her own murder case without direct help from Lincoln Rhyme. This was an issue for Rhyme since he believes Sachs would not be able to handle two cases at the same time. Throughout her investigation she is able to uncover scandals among the police force that shook her beliefs on the force and also her father – whom she always looked up to as an excellent policeman.

A new character is introduced in the name of Kathryn Dance, a kinesics expert. Kinesics (as defined again by Mr. Wiki) is “the interpretation of body language such as facial expressions and gestures — or, more formally, non-verbal behavior related to movement, either of any part of the body or the body as a whole.” So this way of investigation is a whole new thing for Rhyme as he only revolves around the solid evidence. I really enjoyed her techniques and theories; hopefully Jeffrey Deaver will include her on his future books.

There are so many twists and turns in this book. So many different cases, suspects, crimes – old and new, and scandals among the police force that will leave you dizzy yet make you want for more. Jeffrey Deaver never ceases to amaze me. The story has so many twists and turns, it will keep you guessing until the end.

I give this one a five star.