Krishna
Jeffrey Deaver is known for racy stories with twists and turns that will surprise you and in this book too, he does not disappoint. (See our earlier reviews of The Twelfth Card and The Vanished Man for a few earlier reviews)
Starts explosively with multiple failures of an electricity grid supplying power to Manhattan and the control tower clueless about how this could happen. The pin stripe suits have denied permission for load shedding, increasing the risk of a catastrophic power failure which would be worse then load shedding. What the supervisor cannot understand is how a series of failures – each one improbable – are happening at the same time. The first thought among the people in the control room is that it is an act of terrorism that they are witnessing on the dashboard.
Then a transformer blows, killing a bus driver who unfortunately happened to be nearby.
Lincoln, in the meanwhile is on the trail of his most capable nemesis Richard Logan (See the review of The Cold Moon to learn more about the backstory). He is interrupted and told about the sabotage – possibly a terrorist act – that damaged the electrical system in Manhattan by Lon Selito. (Those of you who have read the earlier stories know him well. Here is the nice thing about this series : you can enjoy each story separately since they are all independent twisty thrillers but if you read more, you get to know the characters rather well. You say ‘How is it any different from other authors like, for instance, Richard Galbraith or Anne Perry? Fair point!)
Amelia Sachs goes to investigate the electric arc that killed a person and in the subterranean range, gets blasted by a booby trap set by the killer (remotely). She survives (of course) and gets the door he used to escape back to the lab. In addition, Ron Pulaski looks into the coffee shop on the other side of the road because they are fairly sure that the killer would have watched his rough plan unfold from a location that would not arise suspicion.
They indeed report a guy in electric company’s blue jeans uniform staying there and leaving after the explosion. He had been careful to take his coffee cup with him too.
They are told that someone stole something like 75 feet of electric cable from the storehouse and they realize that the demonstration was just preparation for several other attacks. They are determined to stop him cold.
A note comes to Anni Jenson, the CEO of the electric company that at 1 PM in the afternoon, there will be a major retaliation. Meanwhile, by dint of their investigations and a hair recovered from the coffee shop table, they realize that the perp was undergoing chemotherapy and narrow it down – from the list given by the electric company – to one possible employee named Raymond Galt.
Rhyme and team also narrow it down (based on trace particles found etc) to New York City in a crowded area. At the very same restaurant a man is eating who notices an electricity worker going below the school.
Meanwhile, another power company employee (Algonquin Power Co) called Joey Barzan finds a wire spliced at unexpected place when he was working on a building site underground. Going over, he notices a man with a laptop and looking at the label, he realizes that with the name plate of Raymond Galt, he is dealing with the killer. He attempts to gracefully back out pretending he did not make the connection but is captured.
Sachs reaches the spot and after eliminating the school and the construction site, she hones in on the restaurant as his target. Before she can evacuate the place, the doors and metal objects are electrocuted and several people, in front of her horrified eyes on the other side of the glass, lose their lives. She manages to stop the panic and save the others.
She then goes in search of the perp based on an eyewitness account and finds Joey. Luckily she stops everyone from touching him when she realizes that he has been bound by electric high voltage cable and is a booby trap for anyone trying to release him! She asks that the mains be switched off.
She finds that where Galt stashed his dress was also booby trapped but she had the machine given by the geek she met at the offices of Algonquin Power Company – Simon – and had Joey, who was dizzy but was going to be OK, give her the insulated stick to get the evidence (uniform discarded by Galt).
If you have read all of the earlier books – at least those featuring Lincoln Rhyme, you may be wondering if ‘Joey’ is the killer, taking the place of the real Joey to escape attention, as a character does brilliantly in The Stone Monkey, but you would be wrong! The author does not employ the same trick twice.
The book does proceed in a frenetic pace. When the next warning comes to Andi Jessen, they threaten to kill more people. Rhymes comes very close to identifying the restaurant where the next attack is supposed to happen. But by the time they get their Galt has electrocuted the doors and several people died trying to touch the metal frames. Sachs looks on horrified for a moment before breaking glass, and asking people not to touch any metal, thereby saving most of the people.
In the meanwhile, the chameleon Fred Dellray hires his most skilled spy to find out who is causing the mayhem and where Galt is; in addition, he is also searching for an elusive organization called Justice For the Earth or JFTE (pronounced, cutely, ‘Juftee’) and seems to have been outsmarted by his colleagues who are much more accomplished in the ‘cloud zone’ of the internet.
When the man to whom he had paid quite a bit of money simply disappears, he suspects the worst and also fears that his career is at an end. His wife nudges him out of the rut and asks that he do the work himself, by using his superb acting skills. He does and learns that Galt has been killed and replaced by another.
Meanwhile there is a third attack in an elevator. Some employees are in an elevator when a serviceman with a bucket of water ‘accidentally’ tilts the water on the floor and exits. Shortly thereafter everyone gets electrocuted and dies – except a disabled woman in a wheelchair (rubber wheels).
Sachs and Ron Pulaski go investigating and get a reliable tip that Galt is hiding in a remote house. Sachs, after checking that the house cables have no power (from the device provided by Simon) asks Ron to climb up – as she hears moans coming from inside and she fears that a woman is being tortured. As Ron is moving towards the side of the house, she and Ron hear a diesel engine starting up – they think nothing of it at first until almost too late. Sachs checks the cable again on a hunch and finds that a very high current is flowing through it now!
They get the power stopped and then carry the evidence, including the diesel engine to Rhyme’s lab. Meanwhile two things happen : There is another note saying that they did not agree to the first two conditions laid by Galt and that the third time there is an even greater tragedy. Second, Fred comes and lets Rhyme know that “Galt” is not really Galt.
These set Rhyme rethinking the evidence and he comes to a stunning conclusion. As a reader who has read most of his earlier books, again, I did not see this coming. However, as sometimes in this series, even the twist in the story is not a ‘real twist’ and there is a ‘double deception’ going on here.
I know the above is vague, but I do not want to give any spoiler alert. All I want to say is that what appears at first glance is, like an onion, several deceptive layers deep. It goes to its explosive end taking you gasping and turning pages!
Well done. I would still rate some of the other books as even better than this, but this one sparkles alright!
A satisfying read indeed.
8/10
== Krishna