One thing Deaver does that I’m surprised hasn’t seen more use-presenting the list of clues every few chapters, allowing the reader to keep up with the additions and subtractions to the evidence board in the novel. The Bone Collector beat CSI to bring criminology and forensics into the mainstream-I wonder how much impact the novel had?-and it works well as a police procedural. The Bone Collector ties into a series of murders committed by a Jack the Ripper-esque serial killer from the early 1800s I won’t reveal the big secrets, but it managed to blend elements of historical fiction with cutting-edge crime scene forensics. Deaver inserts the info into the narrative quite well, avoiding exposition dumps or other tedious techniques of the lazy author. But over the course of the novel, the reader watches the relationship between those two characters develop. And both Sachs and Rhyme will confront the worst of human depravity head-on as they track down this serial killer, the diabolical Bone Collector…īoth the Bone Collector killer and Rhyme are interested in historical New York, which leads to a lot of historical New York info being relevant to the plot.

Sachs was giving up her patrol route for a desk job and isn’t too pleased to work with the caustic Rhyme. Rhyme is the only person qualified to solve this case, the only person who can match wits with this Bone Collector, but since he can’t leave his apartment he chooses the beautiful Amelia Sachs to be his legs and eyes in the field-Sachs being the dedicated patrolwoman who first responded to the crime scene, shutting down traffic on two streets and stopping a train to make sure the crime scene wasn’t contaminated. The killer has another victim, leaving clues for the crime scene investigators about her whereabouts. And New York is packed with visitors and UN delegates attending a major conference.

No surprise that his old partner comes to him for help with on a new killing: a man kidnapped at the airport and found buried alive, the flesh on his hand flayed to the bone. Lincoln Rhyme is a brilliant criminologist-or technically was, before an on-the-job accident left him a bed-bound quadriplegic on the verge of suicide.

The bone collector book review