This return engagement for quadriplegic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme is strong on forensic details as Rhyme tracks an elusive assassin known only by the tattoo that gives this fast-paced thriller its title.

Three witnesses to a murder could put a millionaire arms dealer behind bars for good. When one of them, the co-owner of Hudson Air, is blown up in a plane bombing with the Dancer's fingerprints all over it, the FBI takes the other witnesses into protective custody. Only Rhyme can decipher a crime scene, read the residue of a bombing, or identify a handful of dirt well enough to keep up with the killer. Helped by Amelia Sachs, his brilliant and able-bodied assistant, Rhyme traces the Dancer through Manhattan streets, airports, and subways. The psychological tension builds rapidly from page one all the way to the stunning and unexpected denouement. At the same time, Jeffery Deaver slowly develops the against-all-odds love affair between Rhyme and Sachs. Fans of Patricia Cornwell and others in the growing subgenre of forensic thrillers will find a lot to enjoy in Deaver's latest. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Deaver has come a long way since his Rune novels (Manhattan Is My Beat; Death of a Blue Movie Star), and the measure of his growth as a writer is on display in this taut sequel to the bestselling The Bone Collector, starring quadriplegic forensic specialist Lincoln Rhyme. Rhyme is called in to track down a contract killer, known as the Coffin Dancer, who has been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the upcoming federal trial of Philip Hansen. The trial is set to begin just 48 hours from the novel's (literally) explosive beginning. Rhyme and his beautiful assistant, detective Amelia Sachs, have just that much time to ID the Dancer and keep him from murdering the remaining witnesses. Yet Rhyme has personal reasons to track the Dancer, which come out in just one of the revelations and reversals that punctuate this thriller like a string of firecrackers. The pace, energized by Deaver's precise attention, never flags; and if the romantic angle is a little obvious (Rhyme's seeming concern for one of the Dancer's female targets sparks Amelia's jealousy), Deaver manages to renovate many of the hoariest conventions of the ticking-clock-serial-murder subgenre. Another original renovation is his Nero Wolfe-ish Rhyme?a detective who lives the life of the mind by necessity, not choice, and who thinks of everything but can't even pick up a phone without help. Trust Deaver's superb plotting and brisk, no-nonsense prose to spin fresh gold from tired straw. Literary Guild main selection; Doubleday Book Club featured alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Club. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In this follow-up to Deaver's The Bone Collector, Lincoln Rhyme and detective Amelia Sachs return in a story filled with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the first. Not much can divert Rhyme from a close examination of evidence, and the smaller and more obscure the evidence, the better. When presented with the opportunity to hunt an elusive and seemingly unstoppable assassin known to law enforcement simply as the Coffin Dancer, Rhyme can't resist. The hit man has killed once, and Rhyme and Sachs have 48 hours to prevent him from killing again. Alexander Adams's narration leans more to cold reading than actual performance; he uses distinct voices only when absolutely necessary and accents only when specifically called for in the text. Although Deaver paints interesting characters, the real thrust of the book is in a plot teeming with action, suspense, and surprises. Adams's style is a perfect fit, as a more animated narration only could have detracted from the urgency and entertainment. Recommended for popular fiction collections.-Jennifer Belford, Addison P.L., IL Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Jeffrey Deaver constructs a taut thriller with an unusual protagonist. Renowned criminalist Lincoln Rhyme was paralyzed in an accident but still matches wits with a clever, elusive killer. Joe Mantegna is in top form and takes listeners on a compelling chase. The pace is relentless and Mantegna drives home the full sense of urgency and intrigue. He handles Amelia Sachs, Rhyme's protŽgŽ, with sharp intensity and makes her telephonic communications with Rhyme believable. There's plenty of high-tech gadgetry and forensic detail, coupled with deft characterizations and psychological profiling. Mantegna and Deaver just won't let you turn this audiobook off. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist of The Bone Collector (1997), returns to confront the uncannily resourceful killer who's been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the last hours before their grand jury testimony. The first witness is no challenge for the Coffin Dancer, so dubbed after his distinctive tattoo: He simply plants a bomb on Hudson Air pilot/vice-president Edward Carney's flight to Chicago and waits for the TV news. But Ed's murder alerts the two other witnesses against millionaire entrepreneur-cum-weapons-stealer Phillip Hansen, and also alerts the NYPD and the FBI that both those witnesses--Ed's widow, Hudson Air president Percey Clay, and her old friend and fellow-pilot Brit Haleare on the hot seat. With 45 hours left before they're scheduled to testify against Hansen, they bring Rhyme and his eyes and ears, New York cop Amelia Sachs, into the case. Their job: to gather enough information about the Coffin Dancer from trace evidence at the crime scene (for a start, scrapings from the tires of the emergency vehicles that responded to the Chicago crash) to nail him, or at least to predict his next move and head him off. The resulting game of cat and mouse is even more far-fetched than in The Bone Collector--both Rhyme and the Dancer are constantly subject to unbelievably timely hunches and brain waves that keep their deadly shuttlecock in play down to the wire--but just as grueling, as the Dancer keeps on inching closer to his targets by killing bystanders whose death scenes in turn provide Rhyme and Sachs with new, ever more precise evidence against him. Fair warning to newcomers: Author Deaver is just as cunning and deceptive as his killer; don't assume he's run out of tricks until you've run out of pages. For forensics buffs: Patricia Cornwell attached to a time bomb. For everybody else: irresistibly overheated melodrama, with more twists than Chubby Checker. (First printing of 100,000; Literary Guild main selection) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
USA Today Deaver revs up the already supercharged tension by cramming all of the action in The Coffin Dancer into forty-eight hours.


Book Description
Detective Lincoln Rhyme, the foremost criminalist in the NYPD, is on the hunt for an elusive murderer, the Coffin Dancer. He's a brilliant hitman who changes his appearance even faster than he adds to his trail of victims, only one of whom has lived long enough to offer a clue: the assassin has an eerie tattoo on his arm of the Grim Reaper waltzing with a woman in front of a casket. Like his previous bestselling novels A Maiden's Grave and The Bone Collector, Jeffery Deaver's latest psychological thriller combines spine-chilling forensic detail with a turbocharged plot. In The Coffin Dancer, Rhyme, tragically paralyzed from a line-of-duty accident, continues to tutor his beautiful protégé, Detective Amelia Sachs, in the art of criminal hunting. Rhyme is certain he's seen this killer before, and his suspicion of an earlier encounter fuels a bitter taste for vengeance. When the chameleonlike assassin targets three federal witnesses for death, the stakes reach a new high. Rhyme's brainpower and Sachs's legwork are the only tools they have to track the cunning murderer through the subways, parks, and airports of a darkly painted New York City. And they have only forty-eight hours before the Coffin Dancer strikes again. With The Coffin Dancer, Deaver -- already an internationally bestselling author whose acclaimed novels have been translated into a dozen languages -- uses his trademark plot twists to keep this fast-paced, masterly thriller steamrolling along with breathtaking speed. This is page-turning suspense of the highest order.


Download Description
Detective Lincoln Rhymes, the foremost criminalist in the NYPD, is put on the trail of the Coffin Dancer, a cunning professional killer who has continually alluded the police. Rhymes - -a quadriplegic since a line-of-duty accident -- must use his wits to track this brilliant killer who's been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the last hours before their grand jury testimony. Rhyme works with his eyes and ears, New York cop Amelia Sachs, to gather information from trace evidence at the crime scene (for a start, scrapings from the tires of the emergency vehicles that responded to the Chicago crash) to nail him, or at least to predict his next move and head him off. In the resulting game of cat-and- mouse, both Rhyme and the Dancer are constantly subject to unbelievably timely hunches and brain waves that keep their deadly shuttlecock in play down to the wire. Fair warning to newcomers: Author Deaver is just as cunning and deceptive as his killer; don't assume he's run out of tricks until you've run out of pages. By the author of "The Bone Collector."


About the Author
Jeffery Deaver is the author of fourteen suspense novels. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. Universal Pictures is currently producing his latest, The Bone Collector, and HBO recently broadcast a film version of his A Maiden's Grave (under the title Dead Silence). Deaver was born in Chicago, attended the University of Missouri, and received his law degree from Fordham University in New York. In 1990 he quit practicing law to write full-time. He lives in California and Virginia.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One When Edward Carney said good-bye to his wife, Percey, he never thought it would be the last time he'd see her. He climbed into his car, which was parked in a precious space on East Eighty-first Street in Manhattan, and pulled into traffic. Carney, an observant man by nature, noticed a black van parked near their town house. A van with mud-flecked, mirrored windows. He glanced at the battered vehicle and recognized the West Virginia plates, realizing he'd seen the van on the street several times in the past few days. But then the traffic in front of him sped up. He caught the end of the yellow light and forgot the van completely. He was soon on the FDR Drive, cruising north. Twenty minutes later he juggled the car phone and called his wife. He was troubled when she didn't answer. Percey'd been scheduled to make the flight with him -- they'd flipped a coin last night for the left-hand seat and she'd won, then given him one of her trademark victory grins. But then she'd wakened at 3 a.m. with a blinding migraine, which had stayed with her all day. After a few phone calls they'd found a substitute copilot and Percey'd taken a Fiorinal and gone back to bed. A migraine was the only malady that would ground her. Lanky Edward Carney, forty-five years old and still wearing a military hairstyle, cocked his head as he listened to the phone ringing miles away. Their answering machine clicked on and he returned the phone to the cradle, mildly concerned. He kept the car at exactly sixty miles per hour, centered perfectly in the right lane; like most pilots he was conservative in his car. He trusted other airmen but thought most drivers were crazy. In the office of Hudson Air Charters, on the grounds of Mamaroneck Regional Airport, in Westchester, a cake awaited. Prim and assembled Sally Anne, smelling like the perfume department at Macy's, had baked it herself to commemorate the company's new contract. Wearing the ugly rhinestone biplane brooch her grandchildren had given her last Christmas, she scanned the room to make sure each of the dozen or so employees had a piece of devil's food sized just right for them. Ed Carney ate a few bites of cake and talked about tonight's flight with Ron Talbot, whose massive belly suggested he loved cake though in fact he survived mostly on cigarettes and coffee. Talbot wore the dual hats of operations and business manager and he worried out loud if the shipment would be on time, if the fuel usage for the flight had been calculated correctly, if they'd priced the job right. Carney handed him the remains of his cake and told him to relax. He thought again about Percey and stepped away into his office, picked up the phone. Still no answer at their town house. Now concern became worry. People with children and people with their own business always pick up a ringing phone. He slapped the receiver down, thought about calling a neighbor to check up on her. But then the large white truck pulled up in front of the hangar next to the office and it was time to go to work. Six p.m. Talbot gave Carney a dozen documents to sign just as young Tim Randolph arrived, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and narrow black tie. Tim referred to himself as a "copilot" and Carney liked that. "First officers" were company people, airline creations, and while Carney respected any man who was competent in the right-hand seat, pretension put him off. Tall, brunette Lauren, Talbot's assistant, had worn her lucky dress, whose blue color matched the hue of the Hudson Air logo -- a silhouette of a falcon flying over a gridded globe. She leaned close to Carney and whispered, "It's going to be okay now, won't it?" "It'll be fine," he assured her. They embraced for a moment. Sally Anne hugged him too and offered him some cake for the flight. He demurred. Ed Carney wanted to be gone. Away from the sentiment, away from the festivities. Away from the ground. And soon he was. Sailing three miles above the earth, piloting a Lear 35A, the finest private jet ever made, clear of markings or insignia except for its N registration number, polished silver, sleek as a pike. They flew toward a stunning sunset -- a perfect orange disk easing into big, rambunctious clouds, pink and purple, leaking bolts of sunlight. Only dawn was as beautiful. And only thunderstorms more spectacular. It was 723 miles to O'Hare and they covered that distance in less than two hours. Air Traffic Control's Chicago Center politely asked them to descend to fourteen thousand feet, then handed them off to Chicago Approach Control. Tim made the call. "Chicago Approach. Lear Four Niner Charlie Juliet with you at one four thousand." "Evening, Niner Charlie Juliet," said yet another placid air traffic controller. "Descend and maintain eight thousand. Chicago altimeter thirty point one one. Expect vectors to twenty-seven L." "Roger, Chicago. Niner Charlie Juliet out of fourteen for eight." O'Hare is the busiest airport in the world and ATC put them in a holding pattern out over the western suburbs of the city, where they'd circle, awaiting their turn to land. Ten minutes later the pleasant, staticky voice requested, "Niner Charlie Juliet, heading zero nine zero over the numbers downwind for twenty-seven L." "Zero nine zero. Nine Charlie Juliet," Tim responded. Carney glanced up at the bright points of constellations in the stunning gunmetal sky and thought, Look, Percey, it's all the stars of evening... And with that he had what was the only unprofessional urge of perhaps his entire career. His concern for Percey arose like a fever. He needed desperately to speak to her. "Take the aircraft," he said to Tim. "Roger," the young man responded, hands going unquestioningly to the yoke. Air Traffic Control crackled, "Niner Charlie Juliet, descend to four thousand. Maintain heading." "Roger, Chicago," Tim said. "Niner Charlie Juliet out of eight for four." Carney changed the frequency of his radio to make a unicom call. Tim glanced at him. "Calling the Company," Carney explained. When he got Talbot he asked to be patched through the telephone to his home. As he waited, Carney and Tim went through the litany of the pre-landing check. "Flaps approach...twenty degrees." "Twenty, twenty, green," Carney responded. "Speed check." "One hundred eighty knots." As Tim spoke into his mike -- "Chicago, Niner Charlie Juliet, crossing the numbers; through five for four" -- Carney heard the phone start to ring in their Manhattan town house, seven hundred miles away. Come on, Percey. Pick up! Where are you? Please... ATC said, "Niner Charlie Juliet, reduce speed to one eight zero. Contact tower. Good evening." "Roger, Chicago. One eight zero knots. Evening." Three rings. Where the hell is she? What's wrong? The knot in his gut grew tighter. The turbofan sang, a grinding sound. Hydraulics moaned. Static crackled in Carney's headset. Tim sang out, "Flaps thirty. Gear down." "Flaps, thirty, thirty, green. Gear down. Three green." And then, at last -- in his earphone -- a sharp click. His wife's voice saying, "Hello?" He laughed out loud in relief. Carney started to speak but, before he could, the aircraft gave a huge jolt -- so vicious that in a fraction of a second the force of the explosion ripped the bulky headset from his ears and the men were flung forward into the control panel. Shrapnel and sparks exploded around them. Stunned, Carney instinctively grabbed the unresponsive yoke with his left hand; he no longer had a right one. He turned toward Tim just as the man's bloody, rag-doll body disappeared out of the gaping hole in the side of the fuselage. "Oh, God. No, no..." Then the entire cockpit broke away from the disintegrating plane and rose into the air, leaving the fuselage and wings and engines of the Lear behind, engulfed in a ball of gassy fire. "Oh, Percey," he whispered, "Percey..." Though there was no longer a microphone to speak into. Copyright © 1998 by Jeffery Deaver

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Jeffery Deaver has, over the course of fewer than a dozen novels, made a major reputation for himself in the world of forensic thrillers. His writing is lean and crisp, and his characters seem all too real. The fun of the books is the way Deaver throws them into extraordinary situations. Fans of Jeffery Deaver will be thrilled by the return of Lincoln Rhyme in this new offering. Rhyme is the forensics expert who made a strong showing in Deaver's fascinating novel The Bone Collector. Unique among his forensics peers, Rhyme is a quadriplegic, but he still manages to be more involved in his cases than his colleagues.

Before we catch up with Rhyme, we're in the cockpit of a jet with pilot Edward Carney. Carney and his crew are taking a charter flight out of Mamaroneck Regional Airport in New York.The suspense builds all too quickly as Carney, worried about his wife, Percey, tries to reach her via phone before takeoff. When he calls her from the air and hears her voice, he is relieved. But seconds later, the chartered jet he's piloting gets blown out of the sky. On the ground, Percey gets the news. Fairly quickly, the feds and the cops realize that someone is eliminating witnesses to a crime. Percey may well be the next victim.

Enter Lincoln Rhyme. Rhyme's entire house is computerized, and when we first meet him, he is examining grains of sand for traces of murder. Rhyme has thoroughly adapted to his life without the use of limbs, and the electronic world that enables him to operate more than functionally is almost an outward metaphor for the inner workings of his mind.Brilliantly,Deaver has created something that few police procedural writers have managed to do: He can show through action the intellectual processes of a detective without ever having his detective lift a finger. Not to suggest that The Coffin Dancer is not an action-oriented story. Rhyme still manages to get around in a somewhat souped-up wheelchair. He has attained a certain strength of spirit since The Bone Collector, too.

What sets this story off and running is Stephen Kall. Kall is a psychologically twisted man, a hired assassin whose job is to kill the two remaining witnesses to criminal activity. It seems that a very bad man is behind bars awaiting a trial that is coming all too soon. With his strong connections, he has hired Kall to off those who would speak out against him.

Kall has a tattoo on his arm of the Grim Reaper dancing with a woman on a coffin to prove it (hence the novel's title). In his mind, Kall reenacts his military training even while he aims to kill an innocent woman as she stands at her living room window. A worthy adversary to Rhyme, Kall is a chameleon who manages to blend into any environment, who can charm a lonely woman into providing a cover for him, or become virtually invisible on a street crowded with cops.

Accompanying Rhyme is Amelia Sachs, criminologist and Rhyme's apprentice of sorts. Sachs and Rhyme share an unusual meeting of minds, a kind of intimacy that is beyond the sexual. They are truly soulmates, and their work together attests to that fact.

From this point, the story zooms into hyperdrive, with Rhyme and Sachs on the trail of serial killer Kall, trying to catch this most elusive of psychos. The plot twists and turns and leads, ultimately, to a shattering and heart-pounding climax that is worthy of such a tense and entertaining story.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Detective Lincoln Rhyme, the foremost criminalist in the NYPD, is on the hunt for an elusive murderer, the Coffin Dancer. He's a brilliant hitman who changes his appearance even faster than he adds to his trail of victims, only one of whom has lived long enough to offer a clue: the assassin has an eerie tattoo on his arm of the Grim Reaper waltzing with a woman in front of a casket. In The Coffin Dancer, Rhyme, tragically paralyzed from a line-of-duty accident, continues to tutor his beautiful protege, Detective Amelia Sachs, in the art of criminal hunting. Rhyme is certain he's seen this killer before, and his suspicion of an earlier encounter fuels a bitter taste for vengeance. Rhyme's brainpower and Sachs's legwork are the only tools they have to track the cunning murderer through the subways, parks, and airports of a darkly painted New York City. And they have only forty-eight hours before the Coffin Dancer strikes again.

SYNOPSIS

How can you catch a killer you can't see? That's the question forensics expert Lincoln Rhymes faces in Jeffery Deaver's new thriller, The Coffin Dancer. The title character is one of this season's most frightening creations, a psychotic assassin who has mastered the art of blending into any environment he's in -- even a street corner swarming with cops. But what you can't see can kill you, and this psycho may be saving the last dance for Rhymes.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

Spellbinding crime thriller...

Anthony Smith - Mystery Magazine Online

...Deaver builds on the classic detective tradition of the mental puzzler....For pure plot and adrenaline, for brain teasing, for being in the company of characters as interesting as Lincoln Rhyme and his friends, I can recommend The Coffin Dancer highly....[I] thought it was great and look forward to the next one. At least, I hope there's a next one. I hope this is one series that will stick around.

Sue Johnson - Over My Dead Body.com

Be prepared for a fast and bumpy ride. This book and these characters will draw you in and grab you up till you come screaming out the other side. Yes, Lincoln Rhymes is definitely back!

Denver Post

Tightly written. . .unexpected plot twists. . .nearly impossible to put down.

Pam Lambert - People Magazine