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 AudioFile
Jeffrey Deaver's bestselling mysteries featuring quadriplegic investigator Lincoln Rhyme are full of surprising plot twists and outsized characters. This time, with Rhyme and his female partner Sachs in North Carolina, the characters are Southern. Richard Perry Turner has a pleasantly timbered voice and reads dramatically. Yet his Southern voices slip in and out of their accents, and vocal characterizations often seem to change in midconversation, leaving the listener unsure who is speaking. A neutral-voiced reading would have been easier to follow. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


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.


Review
New York Post Masterful....[Lincoln Rhyme] is the most brilliant and most vulnerable of crime fiction's heroes.

The New York Times Book Review A twisted thriller...[of] scientific smarts and psychological cunning.

The New York Times Book Review A pulse-racing chase.


Review
The New York Times Book Review A pulse-racing chase.


Book Description
Renowned criminalist Lincoln Rhyme faces his ultimate opponent: a kidnapper and murderer dubbed the Insect Boy. But Rhyme is in for a surprise when he learns that catching a criminal is one thing...and keeping him is another. Now Rhyme, in North Carolina to undergo risky spinal cord surgery, finds himself hunting a ruthless killer in the heart of a southern swampland -- and going head-to-head with his protégé, Amelia Sachs, in a rivalry that tests the limits of both their expertise and their love.


Download Description
Jeffery Deaver's ingenious, wheelchair-bound criminalist from the international bestsellers The Bone Collector and The Coffin Dancer returns with a bang when an appointment at a renowned North Carolina hospital puts him in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. When the police turn to Lincoln for help finding two kidnapped hometown girls, he has no idea that the kidnapper will ultimately come between him and everything he holds dear -- especially his esteemed protegee and love, Amelia Sachs. When Rhyme and Sachs disagree about the perpetrator's identity, they find themselves pitted against one another in a winner-take-all battle of wits. A battle that will test the meaning -- and price -- of loyalty. The Empty Chair features the signature plot twists and heart-stopping suspense that have made Deaver a household name.


About the Author
Jeffery Deaver, former attorney and folksinger, is a New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels. He's been nominated for three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and is a two-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year. His book A Maiden's 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 Devil's 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 flipping back and forth dizzily between the blind and the ground, deciding where best to step to keep his approach silent. Did the boy have a gun? he wondered, realizing that he was as exposed as a soldier landing on a bald beachhead. He imagined a rifle barrel appearing fast in one of the slots, aiming down on him. Ed felt an ill flush of panic and he sprinted, in a crouch, the last ten feet to the side of the shack. He pressed against the weathered wood as he caught his breath and listened carefully. He heard nothing inside but the faint buzzing of insects. Okay, he told himself. Take a look. Fast. Before his courage broke, Ed rose and looked through a gun slot. No one. Then he squinted at the floor. His face broke into a smile at what he saw. "Jesse," he called into his radio excitedly. "Go ahead." "I'm at a blind maybe a quarter mile north of the river. I think the kid spent the night here. There's some empty food wrappers and water bottles. A roll of duct tape too. And guess what? I see a map." "A map?" "Yeah. Looks to be of the area. Might show us where he's got Mary Beth. What do you think about that?" But Ed Schaeffer never found out his fellow deputy's reaction to this good piece of police work; the woman's screaming filled the woods and Jesse Corn's radio went silent. Lydia Johansson stumbled backward and screamed again as the boy leapt from the tall sedge and grabbed her arms with his pinching fingers. "Oh, Jesus Lord, please don't hurt me!" she begged. "Shut up," he raged in a whisper, looking around, jerking movements, malice in his eyes. He was tall and skinny, like most sixteen-year-olds in small Carolina towns, and very strong. His skin was red and welty -- from a run-in with poison oak, it looked like -- and he had a sloppy crew cut that looked like he'd done it himself. "I just brought flowers...that's all! I didn't -- " "Shhhh," he muttered. But his long, dirty nails dug into her skin painfully and Lydia gave another scream. Angrily he clamped a hand over her mouth. She felt him press against her body, smelled his sour, unwashed odor. She twisted her head away. "You're hurting me!" she said in a wail. "Just shut up!" His voice snapped like ice-coated branches tapping and flecks of spit dotted her face. He shook her furiously as if she were a disobedient dog. One of his sneakers slipped off in the struggle but he paid no attention to the loss and pressed his hand over her mouth again until she stopped fighting. From the top of the hill Jesse Corn called, "Lydia? Where are you?" "Shhhhh," the boy warned again, eyes wide and crazy. "You scream and you'll get hurt bad. You understand? Do you understand?" He reached into his pocket and showed her a knife. She nodded. He pulled her toward the river. Oh, not there. Please, no, she thought to her guardian angel. Don't let him take me there. North of the Paquo... Lydia glanced back and saw Jesse Corn standing by the roadside 100 yards away, hand shading his eyes from the low sun, surveying the landscape. "Lydia?" he called. The boy pulled her faster. "Jesus Christ, come on!" "Hey!" Jesse cried, seeing them at last. He started down the hill. But they were already at the riverbank, where the boy'd hidden a small skiff under some reeds and grass. He shoved Lydia into the boat and pushed off, rowing hard to the far side of the river. He beached the boat and yanked her out. Then dragged her into the woods. "Where're we going?" she whispered. "To see Mary Beth. You're going to be with her." "Why?" Lydia whispered, sobbing now. "Why me?" But he said nothing more, just clicked his nails together absently and pulled her after him. . . . "Ed," came Jesse Corn's urgent transmission. "Oh, it's a mess. He's got Lydia. I lost him." "He's what?" Gasping from exertion, Ed Schaeffer stopped. He'd started jogging toward the river when he'd heard the scream. "Lydia Johansson. He's got her too." "Shit," muttered the heavy deputy, who cursed about as frequently as he drew his sidearm. "Why'd he do that?" "He's crazy," Jesse said. "That's why. He's over the river and'll be headed your way." "Okay." Ed thought for a moment. "He'll probably be coming back here to get the stuff in the blind. I'll hide inside, get him when he comes in. He have a gun?" "I couldn't see." Ed sighed. "Okay, well....Get over here as soon as you can. Call Jim too." "Already did." Ed released the red transmit button and looked through the brush toward the river. There was no sign of the boy and his new victim. Panting, Ed ran back to the blind and found the door. He kicked it open. It swung inward with a crash and Ed stepped inside fast, crouching in front of the gun slot. He was so high on fear and excitement, concentrating so hard on what he was going to do when the boy got here, that he didn't at first pay any attention to the two or three little black-and-yellow dots that zipped in front of his face. Or to the tickle that began at his neck and worked down his spine. But then the tickling became detonations of fiery pain on his shoulders then along his arms and under them. "Oh, God," he cried, gasping, leaping up and staring in shock at the dozens of hornets -- vicious yellow jackets -- clustering on his skin. He brushed at them in a panic and the gesture infuriated the insects even more. They stung his wrist, his palm, his fingertips. He screamed. The pain was worse than any he'd felt -- worse than the broken leg, worse than the time he'd picked up the cast-iron skillet not knowing Jean had left the burner on. Then the inside of the blind grew dim as the cloud of hornets streamed out of the huge gray nest in the corner -- which had been crushed by the swinging door when he kicked it in. Easily hundreds of the creatures were attacking him. They zipped into his hair, seated themselves on his arms, in his ears, crawled into his shirt and up his pant legs, as if they knew that stinging on cloth was futile and sought his skin. He raced for the door, ripping his shirt off, and saw with horror masses of the glossy crescents clinging to his huge belly and chest. He gave up trying to brush them off and simply ran mindlessly into the woods. "Jesse, Jesse, Jesse!" he cried but realized his voice was a whisper; the stinging on his neck had closed up his throat. Run! he told himself. Run for the river. And he did. Speeding faster than he'd ever run in his life, crashing through the forest. His legs pumping furiously. Go....Keep going, he ordered himself. Don't stop. Outrun the little bastards. Think about your wife, think about the twins. Go, go, go....There were fewer wasps now though he could still see thirty or forty of the black dots clinging to his skin, the obscene hindquarters bending forward to sting him again. I'll be at the river in three minutes. I'll leap into the water. They'll drown. I'll be all right....Run! Escape from the pain...the pain...How can something so small cause so much pain? Oh, it hurts.... He ran like a racehorse, ran like a deer, speeding through underbrush that was just a hazy blur in his tear-filled eyes. He'd -- But wait, wait. What was wrong? Ed Schaeffer looked down and realized that he wasn't running at all. He wasn't even standing up. He was lying on the ground only thirty feet from the blind, his legs not sprinting but thrashing uncontrollably. His hand groped for his Handi-talkie and even though his thumb was swollen double from the venom he managed to push the transmit button. But then the convulsions that began in his legs moved into his torso and neck and arms and he dropped the radio. For a moment he heard Jesse Corn's voice in the speaker, and when that stopped he heard the pulsing drone of the wasps, which became a tiny thread of sound and finally silence. Copyright © 2000 by Jeffery Deaver

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
May 2000

The Empty Chair is the third — or, if you count a guest appearance in the millennial thriller The Devil's Teardrop, the fourth — novel to feature Lincoln Rhyme, the irascible forensic genius who became a quadriplegic when a cave-in at a crime scene damaged his spinal cord beyond repair. The series began in 1997 with The Bone Collector, which was recently made into a so-so film starring Denzel Washington. Every Rhyme novel to date has been characterized by authentic forensic detail and wild, even extravagant plotting, and the latest entry is no exception. The Empty Chair may, in fact, be the single trickiest suspense novel published so far this year.

Unlike earlier volumes, The Empty Chair takes place outside of New York City in the bucolic but sinister environs of Paquenoke County, North Carolina. Rhyme — accompanied by his long-suffering physical therapist, Thom, and his beloved forensic assistant, Amelia Sachs — has just been accepted as a patient at the Medical Center of the University of North Carolina, where he is scheduled to undergo an experimental procedure that might increase the range of his mobility but might, on the other hand, result in his death. Shortly after his arrival, Lincoln's plans are disrupted by an unforeseen emergency. Jim Bell, Paquenoke County sheriff, has trouble on his hands and needs Lincoln's expertise.

According to Bell, a disturbed teenager — known, for reasons that become graphically clear, as the Insect Boy — has murdered a local football hero and abductedtwoyoung women. Convinced that the women have only hours to live, Bell asks Lincoln to examine the trace evidence found at the abduction site in the faint hope of pinpointing the kidnapper's location. Though he knows nothing about the physical composition of the surrounding area — he and Sachs, as he repeatedly comments, are "fish out of water" in the American South — Rhyme agrees to help. Once again using Amelia Sachs as his eyes and legs, he sets up an ad hoc forensic lab in a borrowed corner of the local Sheriff's office and goes to work.

This sort of scenario — a crazed killer, a race against time, a scattered handful of clues — offers more than enough drama to fuel any number of traditional suspense novels. In The Empty Chair, however, this same scenario is merely the first level of a complex, multitiered mystery that constantly confounds our most fundamental expectations. The first indication that The Empty Chair contains unexpected depths comes when Lincoln, flawlessly interpreting his disparate bits of evidence, locates both the Insect Boy (Garrett Hanlon) and his most recent victim (an oncology nurse named Lydia Johannsen) within the first 150 pages. At that point, Deaver throws away the rulebook.

After talking with Garrett Hanlon in the Paquenoke County jail, Amelia develops the instinctive sense that Garrett might, as he continually claims, be a victim, and that another unidentified killer might still be at large. In a moment of intuitive — and reckless — empathy, Amelia abandons her professional principles and escapes with Garrett, determined both to prove the boy's innocence and rescue the remaining victim, a local history student named Mary Beth McConnell. From this point forward, almost nothing that happens in The Empty Chair is even remotely predictable.

It would spoil too many of the carefully constructed surprises to reveal the plot in any more detail. Suffice it to say that the narrative — which seems, at first, a simple but effective chase story — broadens and deepens to become something stranger and infinitely more complex. Throwing a varied assortment of people and elements into the mix — a trio of Deliverance-style rednecks, an emotionally scarred cancer survivor, a revisionist account of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, an apparently deranged deputy sheriff, a pair of incipient rapists, the hidden motivations of a wealthy industrialist, and the tragic history of Tanner's Corner, a "town without children" — Deaver constructs an artful, entertaining melodrama that has much to say about the destructive consequences of uncontrolled greed.

If The Empty Chair has a besetting weakness, it is Deaver's relentless determination to dazzle the reader with his narrative sleight of hand, piling on an endless, constantly escalating series of shocks, surprises, and unexpected twists that might, in a lesser writer's hands, have become just a bit too much. But Deaver, as usual, is a consummate professional, and he holds it all together with the ease and assurance of a natural storyteller. Readers familiar with the earlier adventures of Lincoln Rhyme will be lining up for this one, which seems likely to attract a substantial number of new readers, as well. The Empty Chair is Jeffery Deaver at his best and most devious and is recommended, without reservation, to anyone in search of intelligent, high-adrenaline entertainment.

—Bill Sheehan

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, will be published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com) in the spring of 2000.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Lincoln Rhyme is back...

From the bestselling author of The Bone Collector and The Devil's Teardrop comes this spine-chilling new thriller that pits renowned criminalist Lincoln Rhyme against the ultimate opponent -- Amelia Sachs, his own brilliant prot￯﾿ﾽg￯﾿ﾽe.

A quadriplegic since a beam crushed his spinal cord years ago, Rhyme is desperate to improve his condition and goes to the University of North Carolina Medical Center for high-risk experimental surgery. But he and Sachs have hardly settled in when the local authorities come calling. In a twenty-four-hour period, the sleepy Southern outpost of Tanner's Corner has seen a local teen murdered and two young women abducted. And Rhyme and Sachs are the best chance to find the girls alive.

The prime suspect is a strange teenaged truant known as the Insect Boy, so nicknamed for his disturbing obsession with bugs. Rhyme agrees to find the boy while awaiting his operation. Rhyme's unsurpassed analytical skills and stellar forensic experience, combined with Sachs's exceptional detective legwork, soon snare the perp. But even Rhyme can't anticipate that Sachs will disagree with his crime analysis and that her vehemence will put her in the swampland, harboring the very suspect whom Rhyme considers a ruthless killer. So ensues Rhyme's greatest challenge -- facing the criminalist whom he has taught everything he knows in a battle of wits, forensics, and intuition. And in this adversary, Rhyme also faces his best friend and soul mate.

With the intricate forensic detail, breathtaking speed, and masterful plot twists that are signature Deaver, The Empty Chair is page-turning suspense of the highest order, destined to continue Jeffery Deaver's bestselling track record and thrill his legions of fans worldwide.

SYNOPSIS

A quadriplegic since a beam crushed his spinal cord years ago, renowned detective Lincoln Rhyme is desperate to improve his condition and goes to the University of North Carolina Medical Center for high-risk experimental surgery. But he and Sachs have hardly settled in when the local authorities come calling.

FROM THE CRITICS

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

Renowned quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme is back in a "fast-paced, surprising" thriller that pits him against the ultimate opponent - Amelia Sachs, his brilliant protegee. "Suspense thriller fans will enjoy this." "An exciting read, with some very good plot twists late in the game."

VOYA

While in North Carolina to undergo experimental treatment that could restore some of his mobility, wheelchair-bound criminal expert Lincoln Rhyme, his assistant Amelia Sachs, and his caregiver Thom become involved in a unique and frightening case. Sheriff Roland Bell desperately pleads for assistance in locating sixteen-year-old Garrett Hanlon, who due to his affinity for all things that creep, crawl, fly, or make webs, is known locally as the "Insect Boy." Garrett is believed to have kidnapped two women and to have engineered an ingenious wasp attack upon a pursuing deputy. Amelia sets out to garner information for Lincoln to interpret. The suspense builds as the reader learns that a victim's survival is less likely the longer he is held by a kidnapper. Despite many obstacles, including hostile deputies and local vigilantes who want to collect a bounty for Garrett's death, Amelia is convinced that she and Lincoln can find the information needed to locate the kidnapped women in time. In this third book featuring Lincoln Rhyme, Deaver keeps his detective as enigmatically fascinating as ever, while fleshing out Amelia's character and pitting her expertise against Lincoln's. Deaver is a past master of roller-coaster plot twists, and here readers find that nothing is as it seems, including the violence believed to have been wreaked by Garrett. At first, Deaver makes Garrett seem terrifying, but he gradually is shown to be a misunderstood youth victimized by powerful adults, all the while imparting interesting facts about insects. Older teens who enjoy books featuring wrongly accused teen protagonists, such as in John Gilstrap's Nathan's Run (HarperCollins, 1996), will find this thrillerabsolutely impossible to put down. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P S A/YA (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2000, Simon & Schuster, 411p, $25. Ages 16 to Adult. Reviewer: Joanna Morrison

SOURCE: VOYA, December 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 5)

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. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/00.]--Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

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 Cahners Business Information.

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