The Twelfth Card (2005)

Jeffery Deaver cannot write a really bad book,but on occasionally one comes up this is not up to his usual high standard. 'The Twelfth Card' is one of them. In the first place he has a certain amount of 'gangsta' slang which needs a glossary to understand it. Then he introduces a killer who has a quite unique take on life (and death),but throws the whole thing away towards the end of the book. Not all is lost because when Lincoln Rhyme takes centre stage,the whole thing comes together. ( )

awful ( )

This book took a while to read but not because it was dull...apart from time, you find yourself early on reading slowly to take in the scores of clues and information being fed to you as not doing so will catch you out later when something is figured out.

The story starts with an attempted murder of a teen girl in a public library, and soon escalates to a murder of the librarian and an injured bystander. The apparent motive is attempted rape, but then strangely takes on a cultish lead and then changes tack to a crime from 140 years previously. As I allluded to, you need to be on your wits with this one as the plot changes almost with every chapter with clues in abundance - but which clues are genuine and which are 'planted'?

Enter the brilliant Lincoln Rhyme, a forensic expert which an attitude - if you have seen The Bone Collector, he was played by Denzel Washington...and as good as that movie was, this book is better.

I have never read a thriller that throws you off the scent so many times and I challenge anyone to solve it before it is revealed...

There is not much I can find wrong with this book - not ruined by romances, Hollywood staging, nor complex plotting. You do need to get up to speed with street talk quite quickly though as this book is riddled with it (being based in Harlem). The portrayal of the hit-man is done perfectly to the point you cannot help but admire by his murderous trade.

A must read. ( )

Didn't quite like the end of the case but well it's still great ( )

Couldn't put it down--loved it! Can't imagine how Jeffery Deaver's mind works! Wonderful! ( )