Roadside Crosses

Kathryn Dance, is a specialist in reading people. The momentary smile or constant blinking of a suspect--something those without her training would never notice--gives her real insight into whether a suspect is lying or not. This time, she is up against an internet genius. Someone, it seems, is putting up roadside crosses, not, as is usual, as a memorial to someone who died in an auto crash. But as a way to announce a coming death. But why? And who?

"Roadside Crosses" explores the dark side of blogging and cyber-bullying, resulting in multiple deaths of readers of a popular online blog. As always, Deaver does his research into the subject, and puts it across in an entertaining way. Kathryn Dance is a great new character, and this is the show more second book in her series. Deaver creates a great supporting cast, so you really become involved in her story, her family and her romantic life. The only downside of "Roadside Crosses" is that Deaver takes his classic twist ending a bit too far, resulting in a messy and unsatisfying conclusion. Generally I enjoy his twisting conclusions and like being led down one path, only to end up on another; however it wasn't executed well in this story. A bit of a disappointment to end so weakly after being immersed in a great story. show less

In Roadside Crosses by Jeffrey Deaver, we once more read about Kathryn Dance, a body-language or kinesic analysis expert for the California Bureau of Investigation. Someone is leaving disturbing crosses by the roadsides, made of dark, broken branches, with blood red roses at the base. On the crosses is etched a date; a date in the future. The crosses appear to be notices that someone will be attacked and left for dead on those dates. It’s up to Kathryn and the other officers in the CBI and Monterey Sheriffs Dept. to stop this madman. Add to this the personal family crisis caused by Kathryn’s mom being arrested for murder, corrupt politicians, an obsessive blogger, a tech savvy professor and teenaged cyber bullies, and you have the show more makings of a pretty good novel.

Deaver does an excellent job in this second in the Kathryn Dance series. Even though the book references the incidents of the previous novel, the reader can follow along quite well. Dance’s character is further fleshed out, allowing us to see a bit more of what “makes her tick”. The book is an interesting foray into the world of blogging and especially into the world of cyber bullying. It was frighteningly true to life to see how rumors, innuendo and outright lies can travel the globe in the speed of a mouse click and the terrible ramifications for those targeted.

I really only had two complaints about the book, and neither one are terribly significant. First, I’m starting to feel a bit smacked over the head with the info that Kathryn Dance is a kinesic analysis expert and what this means to how she interacts with the world. Okay…I get it. I wouldn’t need to be told more that a couple of times if a character was a world class marksman, or a translator, or someone who can read lips. It almost feels as if the specialty that Dance practices isn’t considered legitimate, so we must be reminded frequently lest we hold her in lower esteem. On the other hand, it is an odd specialty, so maybe we need to be reminded of its value.

The other complaint is just down right silly. The author got teen behavior just spot on, with one tiny exception:

“Then he walked inside, and to his horror he’d seen only the kewl people, none of the slackers or games. The Miley Cyrus crowd.”

The quote is part of a passage describing a party this particular teen went to, expecting his friends to be there. The passage goes on to describe a party out of control, teens drinking and using, etc. Pretty much a typical, unsupervised teen party. So what’s my beef? I’m warning you…it’s silly….The Miley Cyrus crowd…part. I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the country, but where my youngest goes to school, at our local high school, the “kewl” kids, the drinkers, the partier’s, would NEVER…. EVER-in a MILLION years listen to or watch Miley Cyrus. Only “goody-two-shoes” nerds would profess anything but disgust for her music, movies and tv shows. How do I know this with such authority? Easy….my lil’ Sophomore is a “goody-two-shoes nerd”. Now she happens to be a JV cheerleader too, (weird, huh?) with a GPA of over 4.0 (weirder, huh?). But when she went to a birthday party at another cheerleaders house and kids showed up drunk, she was on the phone to me in about 30 seconds flat looking for a ride home. And yup…she’s a Miley Cyrus fan. I know…silly thing to bug me, but everything else was so well done, it was like a teenager wrote those parts, so…what can I say?

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely! Aside from my own petty little problems, it’s a good book and Jeffrey Deaver has done it again!! (One of these days, he’ll write a klinker, just playin’ the odds, but not this time!) show less

Convincente. Deaver è proprio bravo, la protagonista è femminile e per tutto il tempo ho pensato di leggere un libro scritto da una donna, e non è poco.
Inoltre gli argomenti di cui si tratta nel libro, internet, blog, social network, giochi online, sono affrontati correttamente, senza grosse imprecisioni, anzi.
E poi diciamolo, adoro la cinesica e questa protagonista! :)

The Monterey Peninsula is rocked when a killer begins to leave roadside crosses beside local highways-not in memoriam, but as announcements of his intention to kill. And to kill in particularly horrific and efficient ways: using the personal details about the victims that they've carelessly posted in blogs and on social networking websites. The case lands on the desk of Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation's foremost kinesics-body language-expert. She and Deputy Michael O'Neil follow the leads to Travis Brigham, a troubled teenager whose role in a fatal car accident has inspired vicious attacks against him on a popular blog, The Chilton Report. As the investigation progresses, Travis vanishes. Using techniques he show more learned as a brilliant participant in MMORPGs, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, he easily eludes his pursuers and continues to track his victims, some of whom Kathryn is able to save, some not. Among the obstacles Kathryn must hurdle are politicians from Sacramento, paranoid parents and the blogger himself, James Chilton, whose belief in the importance of blogging and the new media threatens to derail the case and potentially Dance's career. It is this threat that causes Dance to take desperate and risky measures� In signature Jeffery Deaver style, Roadside Crosses is filled with dozens of plot twists, cliff-hangers and heartrending personal subplots. It is also a searing look at the accountability of blogging and life in the online world. Roadside Crosses is the third in Deaver's bestselling High-Tech Thriller Trilogy, along with The Blue Nowhere and The Broken Window. show less

Roadside Crosses is the second book in the Kathryn Dance series by Jeffery Deaver and was originally published in 2009.

A California Highway Patrolman is on his way home when he notices a roadside cross and he pulls over to investigate and then goes home. Later that day a student is bundled in to the boot of her own car, duct taped up and driven off. She is able to hear the driver stop a couple of times before he leaves her on a beach still in the boot. The victim can feel the tide coming in and panic sets in that she is about to die.

The following day after the victim had been found the patrolman calls in about the cross as he noticed it had predicted her death. Kathryn Dance is put on the case and found that the victim had made various show more comments on a blog. When another victim is discovered, there is another cross and Dance has worked out that there is a link between the blog and the victims.

Dance can see that a ‘perp’ is being outed online with little or no evidence and finds that the blog is more of a hinderance than a help. As a pending disaster seems to be approaching for someone Dance needs to keep a calm head something that is not very easy when the press are all pointing their cameras at you.

Another incredible read and shows that Deaver really does have a devious mind when it comes to writing thrillers. show less

Jeffrey Deaver knows how to write a thriller, and I have followed him for a number of years. His Kathryn Dance series is a little different though because he goes into the fascinating field of kinesiology. That's what Dance does - she reads people's involuntary speech and behaviour patterns, and uses this to separate the truth from lies. This book also steps wholeheartedly into the cyber world. The world of blogging, instant messaging and gaming is discussed in detail in this book. Deaver provides a unique insight into the teen world of cyberspace, and gives us a good idea of what synth life is like. The lines between reality and synth are shifting all the time, and it is so easy for young people these days to get totally taken up in show more synth, and then they can't separate that from reality. This book is full of twists and turns as Dance and her team try to track down the Roadside Cross Killer who appears to be a teenage boy who seems to totally exist in synth. Dance and her immediate team get drawn into a macabre world where reality blurs and gets lost somewhere in cyber space. This is an excellent book. show less

Jeffrey Deaver is another big favorite of mine. He's prolific, but he always delivers a quality page-turning thriller. He's got several series going, most famously the Lincoln Rhyme novels, but this is the second book in a new series of novels featuring California Bureau of Investigations agent Kathryn Dance. Where Lincoln Rhyme is interesting because he is a highly intelligent & driven forensic scientist who happens to be a quadriplegic, Kathryn Dance is interesting because she's an expert in kinesics (body language to the rest of us).

Deaver is a retired attorney & he builds a plot much like I imagine you build a case - step by step, bit by bit - in his novels he deals the cards to you one by one until you get the whole picture. He is show more also the master of the unexpected twist. He does this better than anyone I've ever read - throwing a monkey wrench into what you thought was going on & forcing you to look at everything from another perspective. I've often thought he should consider a third a career as an illusionist because he's just that good at misdirection.

This was an enjoyable novel combining additional character development with a great story that features the world of blogs & MMORPG's - two things I like an awful lot. He manages to write about the virtual world (or synth world, as he calls it) without sounding like a complete n00b - that tells me he actually researches what he's writing & listens to the experts he consults (another really great quality in a human being). A fun, smart read. show less