Wheelchair Bound Criminologist Saves the Day (The Twelfth Card - Jeffery Deaver)

Member Name: Tamarind

Product:	The Twelfth Card - Jeffery Deaver
Date:	25/05/09 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enjoyable, easy read

Disadvantages: Fast paced book except for the ending

Author Jeffery Deaver's best known work is probably The Bone Collector which was made into a film starring Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie and Queen Latifah in 1999. Other than that, I had never heard of him or read any of his books. However, that has now changed as I have just finished reading The Twelfth Card and can thoroughly recommend it.

The main character is a criminologist named Lincoln Rhyme, who is a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair. His protégée is Amelia Sachs, who also happens to be his girlfriend. The two of them are asked to investigate the attempted rape of Geneva Settle, a 16 year old black girl from Harlem. Geneva is investigating her long dead ancestor, Charles Singleton at the African-American Museum of Culture when the perpetrator strikes. However, Geneva is one sharp young lady and is suspicious of the man when he enters the room where she is reading. She manages to outwit the perpetrator and runs literally for her life.

Several more attempts are made on Geneva's life even whilst under police protection and Rhyme questions whether it has anything to do with the fact that Singleton, who died a 140 years earlier, took a secret to the grave with him.

I found this a very easy read with lots of twisting and weaving of the plot. The author gives enough description of the characters to allow you to mentally picture each one. He is not one of those writers who seem to pad out the pages with superfluous detail just for the sake of it. I am all for detail if it helps the story along but often this is not the case. I would say Deaver has the level of detail just about right.

As this a fast paced read, I found that all too soon the author was tying up the loose ends and bringing the story to what I thought was a neat conclusion. However, I was concerned that I still had a few chapters till the end of the book so what had the author still to tell us? It was at this point that the story took a completely different turn and the plot continued to somewhere even I had not imagined.

I enjoyed the ending but did feel it was a bit of a damp squib after the pace of the rest of the book. Would I recommend it? Yes. Would I read other books in the Lincoln Rhyme series? You bet.

For those of you interested in reading other books in the Lincoln Rhyme series they are -

The Bone Collector
The Coffin Dancer
The Empty Chair
The Stone Monkey
The Vanished Man
The Twelfth Card
The Cold Moon
The Broken Window

Summary: Different storyline with lots of twisting and weaving of the plot