The Empty Chair

Rating:
Summary: More great Deaver and Rhyme
Review: This is one of the best Lincoln Rhyme novels yet. Deaver has done a great job creating a plausible reason for Rhyme to travel away from the safety of his own apartment.

The action really gets going when Sachs starts to disagree with Rhyme on the guilt of the suspect. Then, when you think it is all over, Deaver throws in a heart stopping twist.

If you have never read a Deaver book, you will probably be hooked after this one. If you like reading series books, you may want to read the other Lincoln Rhyme books as well.

Rating:
Summary: Empty Chair Will Keep YOUR Chair Filled For Hours!
Review: Simply freakin' amazing. I'm sure I'm not alone when I admit I'd never heard of Jeffery Deaver until The Bone Collector came to a theater near you.

But, hey, when a book is made into a movie, and the movie is good, you know what that means. The book is always better. And different. So, I picked up The Bone Collector, read it, and it now occupys a little corner of my mind that I reserve for excellent reads.

Then there was The Coffin Dancer to which I felt was off-the-charts better than The Bone Collector (not a small feat for someone with an English degree and a LOT of read books under my belt!).

Now there's The Empty Chair. (Also, on a side note, is it just me, or does Jeffery Deaver come up with some of the coolest titles in print?) I walked through a hornets' nest about eight years ago and it was enough to scare the bejesus out of me any time a stingin' thing comes near me. Then the first chapter of The Empty Chair ends with just this scenario. Well, I was hooked.

This was a lot of work-up to my ultimate decision on this book, and on Jeffery Deaver as an author: Why isn't the entire population of the world buying his books? In The Empty Chair, science tracks a killer, plot twists are so plentiful you'd think that it should take twenty writers to come up with these things, and yet NOTHING falls apart! While many twists (I can't mention even one because it would be a plot spoiler) are so jarring, they are absolutely never without substance. Re-reading the book you catch all sorts of foreshadowing, so the plot never comes apart. Like I said at the beginning: Simply freakin' amazing!

I am frequently asked (because I talk about books very frequently) who is my favorite author. Since my degree is in English, I should be answering this with writers such as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemmingway, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, and so forth. But I give an honest answer: I have two favorite authors. Tom Clancy and Jeffery Deaver.

Do me a favor, don't bother considering whether this book is worth your money or not. Buy it, read it, and buy more of his books because is just that good of a writer.

Rating:
Summary: DEAVER IS THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE
Review: Well, it has been awhile since my last review at Amazon, and I must say I am glad to return with this entertaining and compelling police procedural drama. I did not give this a rating of a 5, because it dragged in some spots. This book has a powerful protagonist who rejects any notion that he is crippled. The audience will not pity Lincoln because they will admire his intelligence and fortitude. The Empty Chair contain a fast moving polt and a wonderfully developed cast of heroes and villians. The romance between teacher and pupil is beautiful and a realistic truimph of the human spirit. But what really knocks me out about this book is the author always have you wanting this story never to end. I must tell you that Deaver has a gift that many authors do not have. He is truly the best suspense/thriller writer around.

This is a good story folks...go out and pick up; you want be disappointed. Oh yeah...do not forget to click a YES for this review. Please come back in a month for my next review; Later !

TRIPP

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, clever psychological thriller!
Review: Deaver is a tremendous writer. He does everything well...his characters are three dimensional and interesting people, his plots are some of the best in the business, his writing is superb and makes the reader think, and his descriptions of the south and the area in which the mystery takes place makes it possible to conjure up a picture in the imagination. Very few authors have all these abilities, and especially in the mystery genre where many good authors tend to crank out the books without putting much thought into them. It is more then worth the wait for one of Deaver's books.

The psychology of the people involved in this mystery is what makes the book so interesting. The impact of trauma on children who misinterpret the actions of adults happens every day in our society. Deaver explores the brain of an adolescent who has to deal with traumatic loss of his family by emerging himself in the natural world of insects...coping through something a child can make sense of. Into this world is drawn other people, whether they want to be there or not, and each person reacts differently to this odd young man, according to background and gender. All the people make assumptions based on evidence and emotions, and all of them end up being wrong about who has committed a crime.

As a deaf person who has friends who are in wheelchairs and also is a disabled rights activist, this reader feels Deaver does justice to the problems that come with being different. Especially for someone who became disabled through an accident, the trauma and grief is almost unsurmountable. The little things that are taken for granted daily are the very things which make life so difficult for a person who is learning to live with a disability. Deaver does us all a favor by reminding us of those very things we take for granted, as well as giving us a realistic protagonist who has physical and mental problems to overcome. Deaver also makes his protagonist deal with the people around him...those who love and care about him, and those who do not know how to deal with his disability. Rhyme is a realistic portrayal of disability...one that must deal with his difference on a daily basis, one who gets angry at the limitations that the world places on him and that he places on himself. The smiling poster children who never get depressed or angry, and who wait for 'normal' people to help them meet their needs is a bunch of baloney and needs to be erased from American society. A terrific read in every way, shape, and form. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

Rating:
Summary: Another Winner
Review: Jeffery Deaver brings us yet another suspense filled story involving criminalogist Lyncoln Rhyme. This one is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. Rhyme travels to North Carolina in the hopes that a new medical discovery will give him back some mobility, what he finds there is much more than he bargained for.

Rhyme is asked to aide the local Sheriff's department in a murder and kidnapping case; since he has several days to wait for treatment he agrees to lend his particular expertise to the case. All is not what it seems in this sleepy backwater town. Rhyme is without most of his hightech eqipment and is forced to improvise with outdated materials once more showing the reader how much science there is in our everyday lives.

This one kept me guessing right up to the last page. A great read!

Rating:
Summary: Deaver not at his best
Review: After having listened to my first Deaver Audio, The Devil's Teardrop, I expected the same quality, suspense and superb thrilling listening. Don't waste your money on this audio. The reader, Joe Mantegna did a miserable job of trying to create the character's Carolinian dialects. Simply awful. The story was hard to follow and I had to listen to the first two tapes three times to get the characters straight. The ending is the biggest disappointment of all - no real thrill here. This was an average, run of the mill book, with no new creativity in the mystery genre. Think twice before buying this audio book.

Rating:
Summary: Lincoln's Out Of His Comfort Zone
Review: Lincoln Rhyme is back, but he's in unfamiliar territory, outside of his comfort zone that is his New York apartment. Once again the forensic detail is just amazing as the brilliant criminalist sifts through minute pieces of evidence in the hope of tracking down a would-be killer.

After beginning with a seemingly straightforward case with an obviously guilty suspect, thanks to forensic science, things become a little less cut and dried. Soon, we're led on a chase with twists and surprises in the plot that hit you from out of the blue.

Rating:
Summary: Lincoln does it again
Review: This was one of Deaver's best. Anxious to read his new one!

Rating:
Summary: In my opinion...his best
Review: I have been reading most of Jeffery Deaver's work and "The Empty Chair" shows that he has grown as an accomplished suspense writer deserving to be among the big authors

This amazing novel features forensic scientist Lincoln Rhyme and assistant Sachs, (a Deaver classic), in this opportunity, trying to find clues and whereabouts of victims around the swamps of North Carolina. The book also provides a reference map before the first chapter to follow Lincoln Rhyme's search.

Suspense, action, insects and characters galore throughout the whole story, but get ready and buckle up...because the best of the best in terms of writing style, twists, turns and "coups de grace" is reserved for the last 200 pages, they are full of "traps" and "surprises". It is remarkable how Deaver plays cunningly with them, making absolutely impossible to outguess him.

Lincoln Rhyme brightness matching Einstein intelligence is clearly shown, but the huge material resources he needs to employ in order to get the key information required to solve the puzzle and confront the bad guys are not, (we have to remember that he is a quadriplegic in a wheelchair with restricted mobility), this is, in my opinion, something that has to be improved in terms of his character drawing, but it is just a very tiny dark spot in this wonderful book of supreme quality

Rating:
Summary: Twists and Turns!
Review: Jeffrey W. Deaver does it again with Rhyme and Sachs. Full of twists, 'til the very end. Sure hope he comes out with another one like Coffin Dancer and the Rhyme novels.