THE BROKEN WINDOW

by Jeffery Deaver



When his long-estranged cousin, Arthur, is arrested for a murder he did not commit, quadriplegic forensic genius Lincoln Rhyme and his partner Amelia Sachs are plunged into the Big Brother world of information collection and data mining to prove not only Arthur's innocence, but that of a number of other wrongly-convicted citizens. And while they work, an identity-thieving serial killer continues his "transactions".

If The Broken Window, the eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel, doesn't make you want to pay cash for every single thing you ever buy and never lay hands on a computer keyboard again, I don't know what will. The feeling is just like when I read Thomas Harris' Red Dragon and swore I would never again bring pictures in to be developed, because the killer worked at a photo lab and picked his victims from customers' photos. Thankfully, digital cameras have eliminated that particular paranoia. Now we have all new ones to worry about!

For me, Deaver's "Lincoln Rhyme" books run neck and neck with Kathy Reichs' "Temperance Brennan" series for my favorite forensic mysteries. Though "Rhyme" may have a slight advantage, because due to the movie of the first book, The Bone Collector, Amelia Sachs will forever be Angelina Jolie, and I loved her in that role. Denzel Washington as Lincoln Rhyme isn't a bad visual while you're reading either. :-)