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Deaver's 'Cold Moon' stays warm and fuzzy
''The Cold Moon''
Reviewed by John Orr
It's possible that some day Jeffery Deaver will turn nasty on the fans of
his excellent
Lincoln Rhyme series and deliver a really grim and unhappy ending.
But ''The Cold Moon'' is not that book. It is, instead, another tale of a
clever murderer
forced to match wits with the brilliant quadriplegic criminalist Rhyme. It's
filled with what
has become a formula for Deaver's novels, if not his short stories (for
which Deaver does not
feel he has to play nice): Dangerous situation, people are going to die, but
somehow Rhyme,
sifting through microscopic clues, figures it out in time and saves the day.
Lots of clever
plot twists along the way, and some kind of complication that threatens
Rhyme and his
lady-love assistant, Amelia Sachs.
''The Cold Moon'' features a killer who leaves clocks and poetry at crime
scenes, and
includes the reappearance of some criminals from Deaver's first Rhyme novel,
''The Bone
Collector.''
New is Kathryn Dance, a West Coast detective who is an expert at reading
witnesses and
getting the truth out of them. It's a real departure for Rhyme, who usually
never trusts
witnesses. Dance is a good character and before long Rhyme starts calling
''our secret
weapon.''
''The Cold Moon'' is not as bloody, scary or as good as ''The Bone
Collector'' or ''The
Coffin Dancer,'' and not as poetically brilliant as ''The Vanished Man.''
But it's a good
read, as with all of Deaver's books.
But one has to wonder if Deaver has gone a little soft. This one is too
close to being a
cozy. Will his next one feature a cat?
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