The Vanished Man

I can honestly say I am surprised that I loved this book. I thought the last two Rhyme books were seriously off and I didn't even know if I could continue with this one, but I did. Glad I bought it. We have Rhyme and Sachs investigating a case in which a murderer has someone escaped from what appears to be a locked room. The more they investigate, the more they find themselves embroiled in the world of magic and illusion. I got a kick out of this book since Deaver sprinkles little gems throughout regarding some famous tricks and illusions. I also loved how those into this use a variety of methods to trick an audience's senses.

The love between Ryhme and Sachs makes more sense in this one. Thank goodness. I really didn't get what was show more going on between the two of them in the last two books and wondered how the heck they even worked together. What really works this time through is that we get to see a stronger and more confident Sachs. We have Sachs testing for the sergeant's exam and it looks like she has a promotion in her sights.

Rhyme is still his sarcastic self and ready to rush out and feel injured on perceived slights. However, this one made him more human to me due to an introduction of a secondary character named Kara.

I love the characters we have grown to know through the series like Lon and others. But with the introduction of the character Kara I finally found someone that I hope pops up in future books.

We also per usual have a POV starring the bad guy and I wish that Deaver would stop that. These books feel so full and I wish he either cut the number of characters we track, or just leave out the bad guy's justification. Also the final final reveal of the bad guy didn't work for me at all. It was way too out there to be believed. But I felt that way about most of the bad guys in these books except for The Bone Collector.

The writing was great. There is a lot of historical information and detail included in this book. I can say that for once I didn't feel overwhelmed on how the science was presented to me either. Deaver did a better job of including the science talk in dialogue with characters.

The flow was off throughout though. I think that's because of the multiple red Herrings we get in this book. At one point I maybe said please just let it end. But the book kept going and going. The big case that Rhyme and Sachs investigating ties into an active case dealing with a white supremacist movement so that was gross to read about it considering what is going on in the US right now. It seems like lately a lot of my books are apt due to current political shennigans.

The ending though leaves things changed in Sachs professional life. I wonder how that is going to impact her continuing work with Rhyme. show less

A music school student is murdered and the killer flees into a locked classroom with no way out. When the police break down the door, the killer has vanished. Criminalist Lincoln Rhyme and his partner Amelia Sachs are called in to investigate. It doesn’t take them long to figure out the police were duped by the killer, whom they name “the conjurer” due to his magical feats in escaping. The conjurer leads the police on a meandering investigation as he continues on his killing spree, leaving behind bits of evidence which they eventually learn are clues to deliberately misdirect them. Rhyme can’t help but be impressed by the conjurer’s skills at illusion and magic. With the aid of Kara, a student illusionist, Rhyme and Sachs show more attempt to catch their killer through their own planned misdirections.

Deaver writes an exceptional series with outstanding characters. Rhyme is a brilliant man frustrated with his physical disability who relies on Sachs’s skills at gathering evidence and investigating onsite. The two make for one powerful team, aided by detectives within the New York Police Department. Kara is an intriguing character, a young woman talented in magic who despairs over the mental health of her mother and sacrifices much for her welfare. As always, deeper, underlying layers of Rhyme’s and Sachs’s personas are subtly unveiled. Deaver leads the reader through a complicated mystery, filled with twists and turns, the final one which the reader won’t see coming. show less

Interesting and definitely kept me guessing. But it was almost too much. Perhaps the effect Deaver was going for was the feeling of being always at a disadvantage. The conjurer kept fucking with them with misdirection and chicanery, so he made the reader feel the same way. If that’s what he was going for, it was effective. Even after I was prepared for more misdirection, I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

Deaver’s character development is interesting in this one. Rhyme is still irascible, but seems to be mellowing, as if he were coming to grips with his condition. His helplessness at the hands of the conjurer when he breaks in to threaten Rhyme, is palpable, but Rhyme seems to find a way to try for an upper hand. Hope is a nice show more thing to see. In another book he was nothing but mister death wish. show less

Although it has some interesting points, with really neat twists, the problem is that a lot of the action was exaggerated. A lot. Maybe I am not familiar enough with the field of magic and illusions, but I found most of the killer's tricks totally unrealistic.

I first posted this review in the Grab a book and play Booktivity group discussion Where is your bookmark?. Being one the laziest people ever observed in their natural habitat, I will paste it here. It is as good for the finished book as it was for page one hundred and something.

Vote is 2.5 stars. The half star is an acknowledgement that the novel did its job quite well. It distracted me from problems. I will record it as a 2 stars book, though. I cannot force myself to give it a third star for the life of me. It is waaaaay to clumsy and clichéed.

I wanted gore flavour brain chewingum, I got gore flavour brain chewingum.
The idea of delving into the illusionists' world makes the book readable. For the rest, Jeffrey Deaver delivers show more business as usual: the wonder-woman Amelia is always there to make you feel that, no matters what L'Oréal ad says, you are NOT as worth it as she is; the super-man Lyncoln Rhyme is always there to remind you that a tetraplegic life can be full of exciting events thanks to an iron will, a stellar QI and sh*tloads of money (and that being tetraplegic has never prevented anybody from being intolerable); loads of innocent people keep meeting sticky ends just so that Rhyme can humiliate everybody else with his encyclopaedic knowledge and Amelia can overcome yet another trauma from the past. She must be the wet dream of any shrink.
She also has a name that reads quite old-fashioned to Italian eyes. I can't help reading it Ah-meh-lyah. The old lady at my granma's favourite bakery was called Ah-meh-lya.
By the way, I love Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme thrillers. They are reassuring, the style is not too flat, and I forget everything about them as soon as I close them, so I can read them every year. show less

This was my first read of a novel by this author, and I was fascinated by it. Although I learned after finishing the title that this novel is #5 in the Lincoln Rhyme series, it can be read as a stand-alone. One is instantly immersed in the world of illusion and magic with a wealth of history, famous names, and secrets revealed. As Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs become informed, the reader also begins to believe that they might be able to use all the information learned to solve the case in advance of law enforcement. Enjoy the illusion, but I doubt you’ll be successful.

There are 2 unique treasures within this novel. To illustrate my comparison, I will share that although I enjoy reading thrillers by a popular author, there are times show more that I become very frustrated as he seems so busy teaching me about the current espionage technology and military weapons capabilities or whatever background for the latest thriller, I become lost in the paragraphs of ‘lecture preaching’ – oh, I’m sorry, I meant ‘lecture teaching.’

Jeffery Deaver could have done the same thing; as by the end of this novel, I realized that I had learned a wealth of information about illusion and magic. But Deaver is an artist that is a reader’s joy – the presentation is seamless in a cleverly crafted story that will capture your senses, expand your knowledge, and lead you through a skillfully written and tight page-turner. The other treasure of this novel is the presentation of the Evidence Board composed of discoveries of evidence at the Crime Scene(s) and Profile list of the criminal as each develops through the sequence of the novel chapters and as each becomes a method of comparison for similarities and differences.

What an excellent novel to introduce Jeffery Deaver to my reading list of fabulous authors! show less

This was my first read of a novel by this author and I really enjoyed it. Although I learned after finishing the title that this novel is #5 in the Lincoln Rhyme series, it can definitely be read as a stand-alone. One is instantly immersed in the world of illusion and magic with a wealth of history, famous names, and secrets revealed. As Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs become informed, the reader also begins to believe that he/she might be able to use all of the information learned to solve the case in advance of law enforcement. Enjoy the illusion but I doubt you’ll be successful.

I think there are two (2) special treasures within this novel. To illustrate my own comparison, I will share that although I enjoy reading thrillers by Brad show more Thor, there are times that I become very frustrated as he seems so busy teaching me about the current espionage technology and military weapons capabilities or whatever background for the latest thriller, I become lost in the paragraphs of ‘lecture preaching’ – oh, I’m sorry, I meant ‘lecture teaching’. Jeffrey Deaver could have done the same thing as by the end of this novel, I realized that I really learned a wealth of information about illusion and magic. But Deaver is an artist that is a reader’s joy – the presentation is seamless in a cleverly crafted story that will capture your senses, expand your knowledge, and lead you through a skillfully written and tight page-turner. The other treasure of this novel is the presentation of the Evidence Board composed of discoveries of evidence at the Crime Scene(s) and Profile list of the criminal as each develops through the sequence of the novel chapters and as each becomes a method of comparison for similarities and differences. What a wonderful novel to introduce Jeffrey Deaver to my reading list of fabulous authors! show less