Krishna
We have reviewed many books by Jeffery Deaver – all of them so far featuring his most famous detective, Lincoln Rhymes – earlier here. Samples? See The Burning Wire or The Broken Window.
Moreno is an industrialist who wants to make Latin America glorious. He rails against American financial hegemony in the world. As he is giving an interview to a journalist, he pauses by the window of his room in Mexico in a gated tourist community and is shot and dies.
Two people are brought by Lon Selito to meet Lincoln Rhyme. One is a top brass and the other is a chief investigator. The investigator, Nance Laurel, a stern unsmiling type, decides to camp in Lincoln’s house until the end of this investigation.
In the Bahamas, Jacob Swann (one of his many aliases) picks up Annette, a high class call girl unscheduled and asks if they can have a session that day. When she gets into the car and they drive to a secluded spot, he paralyzes her with a blow to her neck and wraps duct tape around her mouth…
Jacob Swann is told by the employer Metzger that NYPD is on to the case and even sends him the names of the lead investigators, Sachs and a guy called Lincoln Rhyme. Before attending to them, Swann has some loose ends to take care of. He goes and finishes off the usual limo driver that Moreno used.
In parallel, Amelia manages to track down the replacement driver who was used one day and goes with him (he is on the meter) to every place that Moreno traveled. She learns that there was a hooker (‘unmistakably’ in the views of the driver) called Lydia who was picked up but they did not seem to have sex in mind. However, Moreno railed against the US throughout the ride and said that he was leaving the country never to return.
The inspector in Bahamas in charge of the case, Poitier, is a young man who never expected to be put in charge and is ‘kind of’ told not to investigate too deeply. But Rhymes, in conversation, finds him very smart but unable to countervail clear instructions coming from his superiors to put the case in cold storage.
Rhyme decides to go to Bahamas himself in search of hard evidence. Unusual for Rhyme, there is a scene at a secluded place where Rhyme is confronted with physical threat and is even thrown into the river to drown. Of course he is rescued by an unexpected arrival. The scenes are amazing. He wins the cooperation of Poitier, who has been asked to investigate the murder of an American student rather than the shooting. When Poitier tries to help clandestinely, he is suspended by the irate superior Commissioner McPherson. He also keeps Lincoln and his entire entourage of Thom and Ron Pulaski in a ‘hotel arrest’ and they are to leave the island the very next day morning back to America.
Similarly, Swann tries to blow up the coffee shop with an IED and times it to explode just when Sachs arrives there. He has got the cell phone of Sachs tapped. She finds out too late and ditches the phone but when she tries to call Lydia, who accompanied Moreno earlier from a public phone nearby, he has tapped that too, and gets there before Sachs. Lydia turns out to be an interpreter, not a call girl and when Sachs arrives, they find the police around the building and the victim dead, tortured horribly before losing her life. Realizing that she, Sachs, was the cause of this, she feels guilty.
Meanwhile the prim and proper unemotional investigator Nance has to leave in a hurry due to a personal phone call and Sachs, peeking into the papers left by her, realizes that she, the investigator, has been plagiarizing everything that Sachs has written, taking credit for Sach’s work.
Meanwhile Sachs is targeted by Swann and there is a little bit of cat and mouse game where Swann thinks he has got her in a cul de sac. While trying to pursue her with his gun readily reachable, he is interrupted by Carol, a tourist and decides to take her to his apartment instead. We then learn that Amelia was aware of him all along and was waiting around the corner of the cul de sac to surprise him.
The missing American tourist turns up dead in the river and is pronounced an accidental death. Lincoln meanwhile manages to convince McPherson that the girl was murdered cleverly. In return for his coordination, he asks that Poitier be reinstated and all the evidence in the shooting incident be given to him. He gets his wish. However, the hotel room where the shooting occurred has been completely repainted – destroying all evidence that may still be there – on the basis of a phone call “from the police” received by the manager!
Rhyme deduces that the student’s killing may have some connection with the killers – by now he is convinced that there were two – the sniper himself and one other who was helping that person. The sniper’s identity is revealed through his cell phone usage and they know the name of the person – an ex army guy.
So Rhyme goes to the apartment to learn what he can with the ‘second crime room evidence’. They collect the evidence and go back to US.
Sachs has confirmation that the shooter, identified as Barry Shales, was in US on the day they knew that Moreno was killed. Rhyme suddenly has a brainwave and realizes that xxx was indeed the killer. The shooting was done through a drone fitted with a long distance rifle!
Meanwhile the next victim, Rashid has been identified for the kill and tracked down to an empty building in Mexico. Metzger orders the kill using missiles and the order goes to the same ‘pilot’ Barry Shales.
They also find that Laurel is alone interrogating another suspect in another case. Metzger knows that she is the one associated with Rhyme’s investigation and gives a phone order to eliminate that problem as well. There is a tense scene where Sachs happens to be in the room of Laurel where we learn that ‘taking care’ simply means that an order has been created to remove the case from Laurel’s jurisdiction. She has been ordered off th case as Moreno was found to have renounced US citizenship in favour of Venezuelan citizenship and therefore this operation is no longer one of homicide of an American citizen.
In the meanwhile Sachs has been put on probation as well, due to the fact that her limping due to arthritis was noticed by her superiors (in NYPD, not Lincoln who knew all about it).
Meanwhile Swann tracks down Laurel at her home and decides to go finish the job. He is informed that Laurel is off the case but worries about her investigating any other crime he may have been involved with. But just on time, a NYPD cop comes and gets her back to Rhyme’s place because Rhyme realizes that the incidental victim de la Rua is an American citizen and therefore the case is back on!
In addition, Lincoln gets a further brainwave when he looks at the photos of the three people killed. He realizes that the case is not a straightforward elimination of Moreno (I am trying not to give the spoilers here!)
In the meanwhile, they do realize that the secret whistleblower was Spencer Boston. Ron Pulaski and Amelia Sachs go to his house to interview him. The house is isolated and then Swann and two of his accomplices surround the house armed to the teeth. This time, Swann swears, he will not let Amelia escape.
But things go spectacularly wrong.
They finally unravel the whole plot, and figure out who is behind the whole thing. There is a thrilling scene where Rhymes watches as Nance and Swann have a confrontation.
Some of Lincoln Rhyme stories have a tailpiece that does not have anything directly to do with the plot (the case on hand in this case, because each book is a distinct case). Never boring, though.
All in all, this is a good but not great book. The plot twists are good, but not amazing like Deaver sometimes concocts in his books – plots within plots within plots and that sort of thing.
In addition, there is a plot to use a ship to blow up significant American interests in South America, which is foiled as well. Again very tenuous relationship with the main story.
Still a good read. 6/10
== Krishna