Krishna
We have reviewed Deaver’s books before, he being one of our favourite authors. We have reviewed The Sleeping Doll featuring Kathryn Dance and many books featuring his most famous detective, Lincoln Rhyme. See The Stone Monkey for one example of this. Now, onwards to the present story, which features a different central character called Rune.
Arnold Gittleman feels safe after running for six months, in a hotel in St Louis. He had two US Marshalls with him. He is ambushed from the room above and in the mass shooting, a deputy is instantly killed. Gittlemen was also hit thrice in the chest, after being confronted by a handsome, dark skinned man. Don’t worry. You never meet Arnold again. This is an intro to the killer.
Haarte, who killed him, asks his accomplice, Zane to get out immediately. Later, in New York, they go and off a writer, who is poor. Zane works in a video store and knows him because he seems to want to rent the same movie called Manhattan is My Beat over and over again. She waits in the alley when Haarte kills him too. He also shoots the TV that he is watching.
When Zane goes there, there are police but she says she is from the rental store and wants the video back. The police decline. The man, Kelly, knew Zane from the videostore. He was a nice gentleman and when Zane helped him, he says he will return the favour. What is the story in the tape? A cop goes in to save a bank where robbers had looted the treasure and were holding people hostage. After his rescue of the hostages, he falls prey to greed and hides the treasure as he was in love and wanted to get married soon after. But the police department finds out and he spends a number of years in prison. When he is out, he is unable to retrieve the treasure.
After a lot of digging, Rune locates a writer who worked for that movie and meets him in a care home. Unfortunately, his mind is mostly gone and he cannot remember much. But he does give the name of the place he sent Kelly to and that is a good lead for Rune.
Haarte was getting pissed. There was this lady he had hit on his getaway, who was being released from the hospital and Zane told him that the ‘weird one from the video store’ was investigating harder than the NYPD were. He decided to take care of themt. He followed Susan Edman, the witness hit by the car, and buried her in a huge column of loose rock put there for demolition from a construction crew.
Then “a man” went to Zane’s house to search but was interrupted by her roommate
Sandra and her current boyfriend. He disables the boy, warns her – and says he is from a collection agency – and departs.
Zane is confronted by the detective called Dixon. He gives her the news of Sue and tells her that she would be under protective custody.
When Richard, Rune’s love interest calls her for dinner to give her a surprise, Rune goes all out, decking herself up and buying a surprise present in return.
As happens in these stories, he is with another woman and the surprise he had for her is an application form for a 9 to 5 job. More than that, he admits that he is no writer but works in a TV station on advertisement copy editing.
She walks out and finds that one of the cops is really interested in her. She finds him attractive too.
However, she goes and meets Emily, the daughter of the man who she thinks took the money, and she gives a clue about the bank where the father Symington, kept his account. She goes and blusters her way through it and gets the name of the attorney. Next she pretends that she wants to find Symington for sexual favours. He tries to buy her off and when he goes to get her a cheque, she manages to get the address.
She finds that a shady man is following her in the train and evades him by hopping into a taxi. When she finally goes to the house, she thinks it is deserted but in the bedroom she finds the passport for Symington with another name. It appears that he has managed to move the money to Cayman Islands and is planning to go there himself, incognito for living out the rest of his life.
She hears footsteps and manages to collide with a returning Symington who suspects her of being with the team ‘trying to kill him’. Before she can recover from her surprise, Emily walks in and shoots him dead right in front of Rune’s eyes.
Rune just manages to escape with her life but finds that she is the one framed for the murder. Alarmed she goes to Tony’s store only to hear that she’d been fired. Stephanie meets her in a subway station and gives her some money as Rune is planning to run to Ohio. However, the man who followed her and is working for Emily confronts them with a gun and Stephanie disables him so that they can escape. But Stephanie gets hit by a taxi.
Rune takes her to a hospital and after ensuring that she will live, decides to skip town. She is followed by a very suspicious character and at the same time her police friend Dixon arrives. She decides to trust him and too late, realizes that the person she almost fell in love with was not the guy who she thought he was. And now she was trapped, in his custody.
How she escapes and the twist about the killer called ‘Pretty Boy’ in Rune’s mind are all coming at the end. However, the tension is great and you want to keep reading.
I almost gave up in the first part of the book because you don’t pick up a book by Deaver to read about the love life of a video store employee. I am glad I pushed through because the book accelerates midway through and ends up being as good as any of the other thrillers by this author. If you are feeling the same ennui, I thought a warning to keep going may be useful to you too.
Then follow twists. First there is the mystery about the cop who shows interest in her. Then she finds that she is trapped. Even after she thinks she is saved, and goes back to her apartment, she meets the bruised friend Stephanie who saved her from the evil guy who really turned out to be the cop. However, there is a further twist there, and Rune again almost is trapped. Then she goes and meets the priest who gives her ‘the suitcase’ which turns out to be all articles about the making of the same movie ‘Manhattan is My Beat’ and then they realize why Kelly was so obsessed with it.
So no money? Not in the suitcase but there is a further surprise with the envelope the priest hands her, which came from the nursing home which she had visited.
All in all, a thrilling roller coaster ride of a story.
8/10
— Krishna