the twelfth card

Geneva is a well-to-do inner city girl, who, despite her hard work, attention to her schoolwork, and the misfortune of being without her parents, has also had to deal with an attempted rape and assault. Will this poor girl ever get a break? Nope, sorry.

Lincoln Rhyme and his able assistant and girlfriend, Amelia Sachs, step in to help Geneva but it seems that the wannabe rapist/killer is still looking for her. When the Rhyme-Sachs team dig a little deeper, they find that Geneva may be in a whole lot more trouble than they originally envisioned. And not only do they need to figure out who's after her, but why. The historical twist to this one added some fun too.

Jeffery Deaver does a good job of laying out an interesting and twisty crime mystery for Rhyme and company to solve. And solve it they do, but it doesn't all just drop in their laps; there are some bumps along the way. Deaver's sense of character development seems to be in overdrive in this volume. One can only guess that he's been feeling that he hasn't given it enough attention in the other Lincoln Rhyme stories, but I don't read enough of them to be sure. Maybe his character's are always cranking away with their personal demons, friendships and love lives.

I've read a couple of Lincoln Rhyme novels and this one holds up well. I'd read another based on this experience, certainly.