The Burning Wire

Starred review from April 19, 2010
An explosion at a Manhattan electrical power substation that destroys a bus—followed by threats of much worse violence unless Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light meets virtually impossible demands—sparks Deaver's sterling ninth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Broken Window
). Forensic expert Rhyme takes charge of looking into the fatal blast, aided by his partner and sometime lover, field agent Amelia Sachs, among others. Rhyme is able to glean many clues from the scant trace evidence left by the elusive killer at the crime scene. Meanwhile, Rhyme is also staying in close touch with Mexican army and police commander Rodolfo Luna, who's tracking dangerous assassin Richard Logan (aka the Watchmaker) in Mexico City. The twin investigations take an increasingly dangerous toll on quadriplegic Rhyme's precarious physical health. Not even the brilliant Rhyme can foresee the shocking twists the case will take in this electrically charged thriller.

May 1, 2010
Indefatigable prestidigitator Deaver sets quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme (The Broken Window, 2008, etc.) against a wraithlike terrorist who's threatening to wreak havoc on New York's electrical-power grid.

The first incident—within minutes, four electrical substations in Algonquin Consolidated Power's electrical grid go offline, and a fifth, carrying the enormous load of current that normally would have been divided among them all, throws off a lethal arc—attracts instant attention from the NYPD, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and of course Rhyme, who encourages his lover, Det. Amelia Sachs, to walk the crime scene looking for whatever trace evidence hasn't been destroyed. Miraculously, predictably, Sachs finds just enough to generate some slender leads. So when the malefactor sends a blustering demand that Algonquin CEO Andrea Jessen execute a rolling brownout across the city, briefly cutting the power in half, and threatening more violence if his demands aren't met, Rhyme and Co. succeed in keeping casualties down, though not eliminating them. As the clock ticks down to Earth Day and the threats continue to set deadlines for more service interruptions Algonquin refuses to meet, Deaver varies the mix with a series of off-speed pitches. The FBI's Fred Dellray purloins $100K for an informant who promises results and then takes a powder. Patrolman Ron Pulaski, panicking at the possibility that his cruiser is booby-trapped, accidentally runs down a pedestrian. From his wheelchair, Rhyme assists Mexican authorities in their pursuit of Richard Logan, the nefarious Watchmaker who escaped justice in The Cold Moon (2006). And two visitors with very different agendas offer Rhyme new options for his future. Only the canniest readers will see which of these grace notes are red herrings and which are linked in crucial ways to the case at hand.

A relatively straightforward performance by the devious Deaver, with fewer open-mouthed surprises than usual, but fewer gratuitous plot twists as well. Newcomers to this celebrated series could do worse than to start here.

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May 1, 2010
In the latest Lincoln Rhyme thriller, Deaver rounds up the usual suspectswell, crime-solversand pits them against a shadowy perpetrator (or perhaps its a terrorist group?) who is using New York Citys electrical grid to commit murder. And if that isnt frightening enough, it looks like murder might be the least of the villains intended mayhem. The Rhyme novels follow a pretty tight format, but thats fine because its a killer format, mixing aspects of the traditional procedural with CSI-style forensic techniques. Deaver, master of the plot twist, does his usual magicno matter how hard you try, you cant figure out what hes about to spring on youand, as an added tension-intensifier, the Watchmaker, the nasty villain introduced in Cold Moon (2006), is still behind the scenes, just outside our peripheral vision. Another winner from the dependable Deaver.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)