The Empty Chair

It's not easy being NYPD detective Lincoln Rhyme, the world's foremost criminalist. First of all, he's a quadriplegic. Secondly, he's forever being second-guessed and mother-henned by his ex-model-turned-cop protégé, Amelia Sachs, and his personal aide, Thom. And thirdly, it seems that he can't motor his wheelchair around a corner without bumping into one crazed psycho-killer after another. In The Empty Chair , Jeffery Deaver's third Rhyme outing--after 1997's The Bone Collector and 1998's The Coffin Dancer --Rhyme travels to North Carolina to undergo an experimental surgical procedure and is, a jot too coincidentally, met at the door by a local sheriff, the cousin of an NYPD colleague, bearing one murder, two kidnappings, and a timely plea for help. It seems that 16-year-old Garrett Hanlon, a bug-obsessed orphan known locally as the Insect Boy, has kidnapped and probably raped two women, and bludgeoned to death a would-be hero who tried to stop one of the abductions. Rhyme sets up shop, Amelia leads the local constabulary (easily recognized by their out-of-joint noses) into the field, and, after some Holmesian brain work and a good deal of exciting cat-and-mousing, the duo leads the cops to their prey. And just as you're idly wondering why the case is coming to an end in the middle of the book, Amelia breaks the boy out of jail and goes on the lam. Equally convinced of the boy's guilt and the danger he poses to Amelia, Rhyme has no choice but to aid the police in apprehending the woman he loves--no easy task, as she's the one human being who truly knows the methods of Lincoln Rhyme. Rhyme's specialty combines the minute scientific analysis of physical evidence gathered from crime scenes and his arcane knowledge of, it would seem, every organic and inorganic substance on earth. Deaver combines engaging narration, believable characters, and his trademark ability to repeatedly pull the rug out from under the reader's feet. Lincoln Rhyme's back all right, and the smart money's betting that his run has just begun. --Michael Hudson From Publishers Weekly Lincoln Rhyme, the gruff quadriplegic detective and forensic expert of Bone Collector fame, strays far from his Manhattan base to a spooky North Carolina backwater in this engrossing and outlandish tale about the hunt for evil. The hick town is called Tanner's Corner, where Rhyme--in North Carolina for experimental surgery--has been called by the local sheriff to oversee the search for a kidnapper and his victims. The kidnapper is 16-year-old Garrett Hanlon, a local youth of ill repute whose obsession with bugs has earned him the nickname "The Insect Boy." His captives are Mary Beth McConnell, who Hanlon has stalked for months, and local nurse Lydia Johansson, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A marathon chase ensues across North Carolina's perilous swampland by sheriff deputies and Rhyme's assistant and lover, Amelia Sachs. Rhyme, a former New York City cop whose on-the-job injury several years earlier left him with movement in only one finger, directs the search from his wheelchair at sheriff headquarters. As he examines forensic evidence from the crime scenes and points along the search route, Rhyme grows increasingly suspicious about which players are the good guys and which are masking their evil intentions. The story grows heavy in the middle, but eventually takes several of Deaver's trademark twists, cleverly camouflaged for maximum effect. The characters surrounding Rhyme in his third adventure are colorful, back-country cutouts who serve their purpose well. In the end, it's all a bit hard to swallow--particularly the ultimate revelations about Tanner's Corner and its strange inhabitants--but for thrills and surprises, Deaver is still aces. Agent, Deborah Schneider. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Mystery Guild main selections; Doubleday Book Club super release; Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection. (May) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal YA-The author combines wonderful examples of the powers of forensic detection along with plenty of bad guys and girls, plot twists, murder, mayhem, and environmental crime. Rhyme, who may be known to those who saw the movie The Bone Collector, based on Deaver's book (Viking, 1997), travels to North Carolina for an experimental surgical treatment with his aid Thom and prot?g?e/soul-mate Amelia Sachs. Soon after their arrival, the sheriff from a nearby town calls upon him. It happens that he is desperate to locate two kidnapped young women. The kidnapper is believed to be a 16-year-old orphan who is suspected of involvement in three deaths, two through attacks by stinging insects. Through chemical analysis of the dirt from the scene, Rhyme is able to learn much about the kidnapper and his travels. However, there are other sinister signs here-like the absence of children among the town's populace. The book is fast moving with lots of surprises. The story offers an additional inducement to recommend it-that of a candid look at a quadriplegic's life. The foray into environmental poisoning by a profit-driven company is timely, and the surprise ending will leave readers impatient to read the next installment of Rhyme's adventures. Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Lincoln Rhyme (The Bone Collector) is back in Deaver's outstanding new thriller. Lincoln and his partner, Amelia Sachs, are in North Carolina to visit a hospital where a new experimental surgery technique might allow the paralyzed Lincoln partial use of his body. But something is going on in this town, and the authorities ask for his expertise. Two local girls have been kidnapped, and while the police know the culprit, they have no idea where the kidnapper has taken them. Lincoln is a fish out of water here, and it will take his complete forensic knowledge to find the two girls. As the case progresses, he will be forced to match wits with Amelia, severely testing their relationship. Although the novel takes a little longer than usual to get going compared with Deaver's previous books, when the suspense starts, the pages fly. Deaver does a wonderful job of strengthening the characters of Lincoln and especially Amelia, who is the heart of this novel. While not as good as the other Lincoln Rhyme novels, this is still terrific, and people should be grabbing it off the shelves. ---Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist This new Lincoln Rhyme mystery is as intricate, well written, and enormously satisfying as its predecessors. Rhyme, a criminalist, is a quadriplegic, directing crime-scene investigations from his wheelchair; his associate, Amelia Sachs, the fashion model turned cop who "walks the grid" while Rhyme watches, is at least as tough, smart, and independent as Rhyme himself. This time the pair looks into an apparent case of kidnapping and murder that keeps getting more complicated. Deaver, a former attorney, supplies enough forensic detail for the most demanding readers, but he also creates characters who feel like real people (his dialogue is so realistic that we don't read it so much as hear it). But what really sets Deaver's novels apart from most of his competitors' is his ability to pile plot twists on top of plot twists until readers are frantically flipping pages, trying to get to the end of the maze before Deaver is ready to lead them there. It's a futile gesture, of course; Deaver is the master of the plot twist, and readers will only drive themselves crazy trying to outguess him. Better just to enjoy the ride. A magnificent thriller. David Pitt From Kirkus Reviews Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist who recently knocked em dead at the bijou (The Bone Collector, 1997), is back, sweating to rescue a pair of kidnapped Tarheelers from the insect-loving kid whos snatched them. Lured to North Carolina by the promise of some experimental surgery that might allow him to move more than his head and a single finger, Rhyme is on hand, along with his protge Amelia Sachs, when Sheriff Jim Bell gets the news that Garrett Hanlon, the troubled teenager who already killed fellow-student Billy Stail and dragged Mary Beth McConnell off to the back of beyond, has returned to abduct nurse Lydia Johansson as well. Analyzing the scanty trace evidence with all his usual rigor, Rhyme, using Sachs as his eyes and nose at the crime scene, dopes out where the Insect Boy must be taking his victims, and Sachs, joined by Bells deputies, races a trio of moronic moonshiners bent on a reward Mary Beths mother has offered to catch up with Hanlon first. The case would be closed if this were anybody but devious Deaver. But the arrest is only his cue to turn up the heat, as Rhyme and Sachs duke it out over Hanlons guilt, and their conflict leaves Sachs on the run with Hanlon in custody, or vice versa. As former allies turn against each other, Deaver shows loyalties dissolving and reforming in record time. But the effect of this double-time quadrille is more ingenious than illuminating; Rhymes forensic work is more dogged than gripping; and the galaxy of junior-league threats who take the place of Deavers usual sociopathic monsters (The Devils Teardrop, 1999, etc.) are no more threatening than a cloud of pesky mosquitoes. Dozens of twists and a couple of first-class shocks, but it all trails off like an endless fireworks display that keeps exploding into bangs and blossoms even after youve started to look for your car. (Literary Guild/Mystery Guild Main Selection; author tour)-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Jeffery Deaver, former attorney and folksinger, is a New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels. He¹s been nominated for three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and is a two-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader¹s Award for Best Short Story of the Year. His book A Maiden¹s Grave was made into an HBO movie titled Dead Silence, starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington. His most recent novels are The Coffin Dancer and The Devil¹s Teardrop. He lives in Virginia and California. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One She came here to lay flowers at the place where the boy died and the girl was kidnapped. She came here because she was a heavy girl and had a pocked face and not many friends. She came because she was expected to. She came because she wanted to. Ungainly and sweating, twenty-six-year-old Lydia Johansson walked along the dirt shoulder of Route 112, where she'd parked her Honda Accord, then stepped carefully down the hill to the muddy bank where Blackwater Canal met the opaque Paquenoke River. She came here because she thought it was the right thing to do. She came even though she was afraid. It wasn't long after dawn but this August had been the hottest in years in North Carolina and Lydia was already sweating through her nurse's whites by the time she started toward the clearing on the riverbank, surrounded by willows and tupelo gum and broad-leafed bay trees. She easily found the place she was looking for; the yellow police tape was very evident through the haze. Early morning sounds. Loons, an animal foraging in the thick brush nearby, hot wind through sedge and swamp grass. Lord, I'm scared, she thought. Flashing back vividly on the most gruesome scenes from the Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels she read late at night with her companion, a pint of Ben & Jerry's. More noises in the brush. She hesitated, looked around. Then continued on. "Hey," a man's voice said. Very near. Lydia gasped and spun around. Nearly dropped the flowers. "Jesse, you scared me." "Sorry." Jesse Corn stood on the other side of a weeping willow, near the clearing that was roped off. Lydia noticed that their eyes were fixed on the same thing: a glistening white outline on the ground where the boy's body'd been found. Surrounding the line indicating Billy's head was a dark stain that, as a nurse, she recognized immediately as old blood. "So that's where it happened," she whispered. "It is, yep." Jesse wiped his forehead and rearranged the floppy hook of blond hair. His uniform -- the beige outfit of the Paquenoke County Sheriff's Department -- was wrinkled and dusty. Dark stains of sweat blossomed under his arms. He was thirty and boyishly cute. "How long you been here?" she asked. "I don't know. Since five maybe." "I saw another car," she said. "Up the road. Is that Jim?" "Nope. Ed Schaeffer. He's on the other side of the river." Jesse nodded at the flowers. "Those're pretty." After a moment Lydia looked down at the daisies in her hand. "Two forty-nine. At Food Lion. Got 'em last night. I knew nothing'd be open this early. Well, Dell's is but they don't sell flowers." She wondered why she was rambling. She looked around again. "No idea where Mary Beth is?" Jesse shook his head. "Not hide nor hair." "Him neither, I guess that means." "Him neither." Jesse looked at his watch. Then out over the dark water, dense reeds and concealing grass, the rotting pier. Lydia didn't like it that a county deputy, sporting a large pistol, seemed as nervous as she was. Jesse started up the grassy hill to the highway. He paused, glanced at the flowers. "Only two ninety-nine?" "Forty-nine. Food Lion." "That's a bargain," the young cop said, squinting toward a thick sea of grass. He turned back to the hill. "I'll be up by the patrol car." Lydia Johansson walked closer to the crime scene. She pictured Jesus, she pictured angels and she prayed for a few minutes. She prayed for the soul of Billy Stail, which had been released from his bloody body on this very spot just yesterday morning. She prayed that the sorrow visiting Tanner's Corner would soon be over. She prayed for herself too. More noise in the brush. Snapping, rustling. The day was lighter now but the sun didn't do much to brighten up Blackwater Landing. The river was deep here and fringed with messy black willows and thick trunks of cedar and cypress -- some living, some not, and all choked with moss and viny kudzu. To the northeast, not far, was the Great Dismal Swamp, and Lydia Johansson, like every Girl Scout past and present in Paquenoke County, knew all the legends about that place: the Lady of the Lake, the Headless Trainman....But it wasn't those apparitions that bothered her; Blackwater Landing had its own ghost -- the boy who'd kidnapped Mary Beth McConnell. Lydia opened her purse and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Felt a bit calmer. She strolled along the shore. Stopped beside a stand of tall grass and cattails, which bent in the scorching breeze. On top of the hill she heard a car engine start. Jesse wasn't leaving, was he? Lydia looked toward it, alarmed. But she saw the car hadn't moved. Just getting the air-conditioning going, she supposed. When she looked back toward the water she noticed the sedge and cattails and wild rice plants were still bending, waving, rustling. As if someone was there, moving closer to the yellow tape, staying low to the ground. But no, no, of course that wasn't the case. It's just the wind, she told herself. And she reverently set the flowers in the crook of a gnarly black willow not far from the eerie outline of the sprawled body, spattered with blood dark as the river water. She began praying once more. Across the Paquenoke River from the crime scene, Deputy Ed Schaeffer leaned against an oak tree and ignored the early morning mosquitoes fluttering near his arms in his short-sleeved uniform shirt. He shrank down to a crouch and scanned the floor of the woods again for signs of the boy. He had to steady himself against a branch; he was dizzy from exhaustion. Like most of the deputies in the county sheriff's department he'd been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, searching for Mary Beth McConnell and the boy who'd kidnapped her. But while, one by one, the others had gone home to shower and eat and get a few hours' sleep Ed had stayed with the search. He was the oldest deputy on the force and the biggest (fifty-one years old and two hundred sixty-four pounds of mostly unuseful weight) but fatigue, hunger and stiff joints weren't going to stop him from continuing to look for the girl. The deputy examined the ground again. He pushed the transmit button of his radio. "Jesse, it's me. You there?" "Go ahead." He whispered, "I got footprints here. They're fresh. An hour old, tops." "Him, you think?" "Who else'd it be? This time of morning, this side of the Paquo?" "You were right, looks like," Jesse Corn said. "I didn't believe it at first but you hit this one on the head." It had been Ed's theory that the boy would come back here. Not because of the cliché -- about returning to the scene of the crime -- but because Blackwater Landing had always been his stalking ground and whatever kind of trouble he'd gotten himself into over the years he always came back here. Ed looked around, fear now replacing exhaustion and discomfort as he gazed at the infinite tangle of leaves and branches surrounding him. Jesus, the deputy thought, the boy's here someplace. He said into his radio, "The tracks look to be moving toward you but I can't tell for sure. He was walking mostly on leaves. You keep an eye out. I'm going to see where he was coming from." Knees creaking, Ed rose to his feet and, as quietly as a big man could, followed the boy's footsteps back in the direction they'd come -- farther into the woods, away from the river. He followed the boy's trail about a hundred feet and saw it led to an old hunting blind -- a gray shack big enough for three or four hunters. The gun slots were dark and the place seemed to be deserted. Okay, he thought. Okay...He's probably not in there. But still... Breathing hard, Ed Schaeffer did something he hadn't done in nearly a year and a half: unholstered his weapon. He gripped the revolver in a sweaty hand and started forward, eyes Read more