The Sleeping Doll (2007)

Kathryn Dance is an investigator working for the California Bureau of Investigation. Her specialty is kinesics, a fancy word for body language. She's one of the top in her field, so when new evidence emerges in a cold case suggesting that imprisoned cult leader and murderer Daniel Pell may have one more homicide to his name, she's called in to interrogate. But Pell escapes and she's left leading a manhunt, trying to catch the "Son of Manson," as he was called, before he can either kill again or persuade someone else to kill for him.

Let's get the cliche out of the way first: I couldn't put it down. My eyes felt like sandpaper and I had a headache, but I just had to find out what happened next. The action just kept coming. The plot was full of surprises for me, right up until practically the last page. The book was well-written and seemed to be well-researched. Kathryn was a great female protagonist, strong, quirky, funny, likeable, but not too perfect. The other characters were maybe not quite so well-drawn, but I still liked them or hated them.

There were two things keeping me from giving this five stars. First, the ending dragged out too long for me. I always use the comparision, "You know, it's like that movie 'Speed.'" The story was over for me but more surprises kept popping up. I get frustrated when that happens. The big thing that kept this from being a five star book was the constant explanation of kinesics. There's a pretty extensive explanation of what Kathryn looks for when she's interrogating in the first chapter of the book. I'm a smart girl--assume I got it. Instead, we get quite a bit of repetition like how "I swear" inevitably signals that someone is lying or at least holding something back, or that when someone taps their foot or jingles their change, they're experiencing stress. It wasn't constant repetition, but by halfway through, I was thinking, "Oh no, here we go again. I hope this explanation isn't too long."

Overall though, the strengths of the book far outweigh the weaknesses and I would recommend it for a fast, edge-of-your-seat read. ( )

This book is about the fact that there is more to a crime than just the persons committing it there are also victims and they are not always obvious. I think that this book is very good it had several unexpected twists.
This audio book was bought from Great Escape ( )

Book was a good mystery, but somewhat drawn out. Not sure about the idea of the body language detective. Don't believe that I'll give book two of the series a try. ( )

Having run out of books to read in Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series I thought I'd give one a shot and I just couldn't get into it and it seemed to drag on. I have the rest of the series already so I'll give book 2 a chance and see if it picks up. ( )

A Sleeping Doll begins a new series featuring Kathryn Dance. She was previously introduced and consulted for her kinesics (body language) expertise in Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series. In this first book, "Dance" is the lead interrogator of an inmate charged with murder who escapes from prison. She continues as lead during the chase.

I love Kathryn Dance's job! Watching people and determining if they are lying or not is fascinating stuff. (I love the new TV series Lie To Me, too.) The book actually follows along the lines of the TV series - giving explanations of movements or choice of words, and definitions of the terms used when interrogating someone.

As for the plot, it was very good. There were a time or two when I wasn't buying in, but for the most part it was a smart written book with many twists. It wasn't on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspenseful, but the story was still very good. The 2nd Kathryn Dance novel just came out last month and it's titled Roadside Crosses. I'm looking forward to it.

Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy ( )