The Burning Wire

I think I'm maybe done with Lincoln Rhymes. This story was good, the plot part of the book was interesting and I learned a lot about electricity! But I'm getting really tired of the way Deaver has taken to dealing with his series characters. I kept wanting to shout, I GET IT, MOVE ON!

I've long been a follower of Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series. I read the books for the excitement and for the forensic knowledge that I get from them. But this book was not my favourite. I found all the explanations about electricity and its dangers a little tedious after awhile, and I found that the stretches to get from Point A to Point B to the denouement of the killer were a little bit too wide to be believable. I have certainly read much better books where apparently two separate plot lines and two separate cases eventually turn into only one. This one just didn't make it believable for me. But the usually curmudgeonly Rhyme is up to par and I enjoy the character. I just didn't feel the tension and the excitement that these books show more generally provide for me. I've given it a 4, but it really is a 3 1/2. The extra half point is for Deaver's usual novel writing skills. show less

One-tenth of one amp of electricity is enough to stop your heart and kill you. Your hairdryer pulls about ten amps. Scared now? I am.

Jeffery Deaver takes this simple bit of information and expands it into a thriller that you can't put down. He's writing at the top of his form in The Burning Wire and I loved this book. Non-stop thrills, plenty of things to be scared of, good guys and bad guys, and lots of things to learn about electricity.

Although he's always a good writer, I've been disappointed with the recent Lincoln Rhyme novels and was beginning to wonder if Deaver had jumped the shark with this series, but this book may be one of the best in this series yet.

The only downside of this book is that I'm now highly aware of how much show more metal I touch every single day even when it's raining and how easy it is to electrify things. Walking home from work in the rain last night I actually hesitated before pushing the button to cross the street. It's metal and has a light in it and thus could be easily wired to kill. I did touch it, but it took a minute. show less

Spoiler sensitive need not continue.

He didn't get me this time. I had my suspicions about the real plot and the Watchmaker's involvement. I don't know how much of it was me being clever or just suspecting everyone when I read one of these now, but when he showed up it wasn't surprising. Then it was only whether the thing was a set up (a trap) or if there would have to be some hair-brained rescue at the end since there was quite a bit of book left.

The handling of Dellray's side of the case and his boss's attitude was a bit heavy handed. I mean, what else could happen after all his ineffectiveness and brooding? Vindication, that's what and of course we got it. Eh, I wasn't caught up in it and so it fell kind of flat.

I also tripped over show more and was distracted by several clunky sentences scattered around, like "the criminalist said". Now really, that's a bit community college Creative Writing 1 if you ask me. We know who Rhyme is and what he is so just tell us who's speaking and leave the aides de memoir out of it. I haven't noticed this kind of amateurish prose in Deaver books before, but it stuck out this time.

Funny that at the beginning of the book I mused that Rhyme's condition didn't take up much time and that he seemed present and in top form at all hours of the day. In the past more emphasis was put on how much of his life was taken up by the necessities imposed by his paralysis and that we'd veered away from that for a while. Then he had that episode and again Rhyme was prevented by his condition from communicating or otherwise helping in an investigation. Trigger guilt and unhappiness. But the visit from Susan Stringer was enough to keep me from thinking the worst at the end and his trip to the hospital wasn't a guessing game for me; I knew he went to have something done to improve his condition and leave him more able and effective. I'm glad it went that way and we'll have a bit of bionic Rhyme to deal with in the future. show less

The Burning Wire is the ninth novel in Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series. This time Rhyme’s target is a killer who utilises the power grid to cause arc flashes and set his victims on fire, or electrifies a building or an elevator to electrocute them. It seems that the people of New York are under threat unless the Algonquin Power company acquiesces to demands made by letter. The authorities fear terrorism, eco- or other. Whilst Amelia Sachs, Ron Pulaski, Mel Cooper and Lon Sellitto work at a frantic pace to process the crime scenes and investigate further, and Fred Dellray makes a dubious move to get information from one of his CIs, Rhyme is also monitoring the progress of the possible apprehension in Mexico of Richard Logan aka show more The Watchmaker. Once again, Deaver gives fast-paced action with a few plot twists. Apart from one or two false notes (uncharacteristic behaviour that should have been obvious to those present), once again, a great read. show less

Murder by electricity substation…obviously, this is a case for paraplegic forensic consultant Lincoln Rhyme.

Jeffery Deaver continues to write tight, well-paced crime novels within each of which we are treated to a twisty ride through the author’s latest research project. It’s a wonderfully sustainable formula, keeping me coming back to Deaver’s novels when other crime writers might lose me at book five or six. I have to admit, I preferred Deaver’s writing in A Maiden’s Grave and his earlier Lincoln Rhyme novels, (The Bone Collector era) because it was less pared to down to accommodate the plot advancements, and he seemed to work harder at atmosphere, but the groove that he’s fallen into is an entertaining and intriguing show more one. I like that the author is still giving Rhyme and Sachs some character sketching, even growth, this far in, and using his peripheral characters well, too, giving them lots of depth.

That said, the ending to The Burning Wire was so projected that the reader is left slightly less impressed with the perp’s astonishing skills than we might otherwise have been; particularly given the character in question: we’ve been waiting for this particular wrap-up for a while, and in the end it was the other things going on in the plot that propped it up and kept it from being a bust (which it was. But not in that way. Grah, word-choice). For an author who has a well-deserved reputation for playing the plot-twist like an instrument, both the identity of the bad guy and method of collar were something of a let-down here. show less

Thank goodness "The Burning Wire" rebounded from a lackluster 8th book (The Broken Window). This one is also not as long as previous reads so that was much appreciated. In this 8th book, Rhyme and Sachs get called in when a mysterious figure is set on attacking the people of New York with electricity. No this isn't Shocker. But honestly, you start thinking of this book that way when you get the POV of the man who is set on killing people due to his obsession with electricity.

We begin with Rhyme being bored since he has no cases to work on at the moment. Since the last book when we went into Rhyme doing more rehab, he had gained a little bit of movement, but that is it. Rhyme is still focused on catching his nemesis, The Watchmaker (see show more Cold Moon) so we do get updates about that character via another character this series introduced, Kathryn Dance (also see Cold Moon). When a bus nearby is damaged due to an explosion because of burning wire connected to a plant nearby, Rhyme and Sachs are called in to assist. Due to the NYPD and FBI being afraid of a missed terrorist connection, the clock is ticking for Rhyme and his usual companions to track down the person or persons responsible.

I can honestly say this is the most I liked Rhyme since around the first book. We get his vulnerability when he has a medical setback and also the book does a nice callback to how suicidal Rhyme used to be in The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme #1). Rhyme knows that being able to still work cases and also his relationship with Amelia Sachs is what brought him back to the other side. Rhyme's encyclopedia knowledge of most things science does not extend much to electricity, so we have to get more information about that via the bad guy's POV and also what characters tell Sachs.

Sachs besides her POV working the scene here and there we don't get much time with. I am not complaining though. I think the last book with her and the nonsense with Pammy was a bit too much for me. I do wish we had seen Sachs interact with her mother more though. She's always this faceless character to me and that's about it.

We also go to Ron Pulaski's POV in this one. And either Deaver needs to toughen this character up, or just devote more of the POV to Sachs. I feel like Pulaski has not changed one iota since he was first introduced. I also find it odd that Rhyme's dream is one day that Sachs and Pulaski run the Crime Scene department or whatever it was referred to in this book. I wonder if Sachs and Pulaski even know about his dream or would agree with it. There was an interesting development regarding Pulaski in this one that I would have been more favorable to if Deaver wasn't so interested in resolving it by the end of the book. It could have been nice to follow up with it in the next book.

We also get Fred Dellray's POV which I liked a lot. We get to see him struggling with the changing nature of the FBI and what place if any he has in it anymore.

We also get the bad guy's POV and his obsession with electricity though seems at odds with his mission in this book. I won't get into it in the review otherwise I will have spoiled what I considered a great reveal.

I thought it was interesting in this one that we get a sense of the characters moving on with their lives between books which is nice. We get a reference to Rhyme and Sachs visiting Rhyme's cousin Arthur (see The Broken Window) who I still don't care for much. But also we get references to Sachs getting a new car and working on it with her pseudo niece Pammy. We get references to one of the characters still doing his ballroom dancing and everyone else asking about it.

The flow of the book works in this one though once again I have to say the little bits we get about the Watchmaker messes with things. I get why Deaver did that when I got towards the end, but I started to get tired of Dance and Rhyme talking via phone while Rhyme was trying to work the case in New York and another one elsewhere.

The book ends on a good note. Deaver tries to set up another twist but I wasn't fooled by it for a second. I guess if I was reading this book when it first came out, I would have been worried, but since I know other books follow this one I just went eh interesting. show less