Book : The Twelfth Card by Jeffery Deaver
Krishna
We have reviewed earlier Deaver books featuring Lincoln Rhymes – see for example The Vanished Man and The Stone Monkey reviewed earlier.
Geneva Settle, a sixteen year old black girl, is reading about his ancestor 140 years ago, from a library microfiche archive.
Charles Singleton, an ex slave, is running for his life. Police are close behind him. While Geneva is reading about him in the library, in a deserted area, forty one year old Thompson Boyd approaches her from behind. She manages to deceive him at the last minute and run. Who is he? Why is he chasing her? In typical Jeffrey fashion, you find out later. What you know is that, like his earlier works (for instance The Vanished Man) the tale takes off almost from the first page of the book.
Jeffrey writes always to entertain and not to inform. His books are filled with twists which add to the enjoyment of reading.
Rhymes gets interested in the case and sends Sachs to the library to walk the grid. The attacker, Thompson Boyd, is watching her from the higher floors of an abandoned building. Meanwhile Sachs reports that the perp had left his bag with rape tools behind and among the usual assortment of tools she also finds a tarot card of a figure hanging.
The attacker aims and kills the head librarian who is being interviewed by Selitto. Right in front of Selitto. And disappears in the crowd. The advantage he has is that he looks totally average and so forgettable in a crowd. He is tall, though.
Rhymes begins his analysis and a whiteboard list for which these stories are famous. He learns that the gun is a special type and possibly easy to trace but the bullets were home made!
He realizes that the unsub (unidentified subject, his name for all perps until they know who he is) is fond of junk food (from traces recovered from the bag). He also makes a shocking discovery. The ‘rape kit’ was meant to be found. His real intention, he discovers, is to stop anyone looking for the subject that Geneva was looking into and now he possibly will not stop until he got Geneva killed.
Geneva insists that she has to attend her tests and is sent under the protection of detective Bell and the rookie cop.
The story shifts to Jax, who has had no luck in finding a fortune ever since he got released from his last bout in a prison cell. He is in search of Geneva too, on orders. He goes to a contact called Ralph who has his ears and eyes in Harlem and he agrees to be on the lookout for the girl Jax described.
When Jax finds out about Geneva’s school, he gets very close to her before she is rescued. As he walks away, the police understand that there is an accomplice. The next attempt happens with Boyd himself. He attacks a rookie policeman, fakes a gunfight and while the police are distracted, places a cyanide bomb inside the car.
The bright detective Bell figures it out by the inconsistent clues – leaving the pistol in the hand of the unconscious police officer Pulaski so suggest that he fired the bullet – and manage to switch cars.
When Bell finds that Geneva’s “uncle” has kidnapped her, they give chase and finally find that the uncle is a janitor. Geneva seems to be an orphan with no one and does not want to be in the foster care system. She faked a sophisticated family (one that was coming from Europe to see her but got stuck at Heathrow) and had Lakeesha pretend on the phone as her mom.
Rhymes decides to keep Geneva at his apartment until the case is solved. However, when they find that Jax had sent some books in a bag through a friend of Geneva’s and when the consummate actor Delaney (of NYPD) bags Jax by happening to watch Jax exchange money with the boy, the story takes a very unexpected turn. (Will not spoil it by giving it away).
The story races to the climax and end thereafter – but with more twists and turns. The attack on Geneva comes from completely different quarters – unexpected for most of us. Then the mastermind of the plot – who hired Thomas Boyd and his (unexpected) accomplice is revealed.
Yes, it is a bit disappointing to realize that there is yet another person in the story whom you had not met before and therefore had no chance to suspect, but it still hangs together in a story like this.
The ‘Why’ of the story – why was he targeting Geneva – is interesting – and perhaps the most unexpected in its twists. In the initial attack on the library, the evidence was left to look like a rape effort and Lincoln saw through it. Then it was supposed to be something in the history of the slave ancestor and later, they thought it was Geneva witnessing plans for a bank heist – even though she may not have realized what she was seeing at that time. Then the personalities involved made it look like it was not a bank heist but a terrorist bomb attack.
The real reason is revealed only at the end. After the mastermind was (inevitably) defeated.
The story has the requisite twists and turns you have come to expect in a Deaver story. It is a nice read. But a few things stand out.
This is about the African American community – as always, Jeffery works with a theme in his books. I thought it was about cardsharps when I saw the title, but no – it has nothing to do with the playing card tricks.
It is not as intricately plotted as, for instance, the Coffin Dancer. If you are new to the genre, it will make you delight in the story and gasp at the turns. But if you are a long time Lincoln Rhymes fan, you will inevitably compare it to the best stories and realize that while this is gripping and entertaining for sure, it is not up there with the best of Deaver’s stories.
Still, easily a 7/10
= = Krishna