The Rule of Threes by Jeffery Deaver

Published by Amazon Original Stories on March 1, 2024

The Rule of Threes is a serial killer novella that challenges the reader to identify the killer. To solve the puzzle, the reader will need to identify the killer’s motivation. Jeffery Deaver adds so many plot twists that the reader will be challenged to keep up with the novella’s changing landscape. Solving the mystery is out of the question.

Constant Marlowe is the protagonist in one of Deaver’s ongoing series. Constant is the kind of police detective who makes her own rules. Those rules aren’t always consistent with the law. Fictional cops who go Dirty Harry on criminals are popular with consumers of crime fiction even if, in the real world, cops who don’t obey the law have no business being cops.

Constant makes her way to Clark Valley, Illinois to investigate a serial killer. Only two women have been killed, so it might be more accurate to say that she is concerned about a budding serial killer. The killer earns the name BRK (for Bludgeon, Rape, and Kill) because that’s what he does to his victims and the media like to identify serial killers by cool names or initials.

The first victim was killed three days before the second. Both are young women of similar size who have short dark hair. As Constant examines the crime scene, Joseph Ray Whelan is hiding in the woods, watching her work. Is he the killer? That would be telling.

A Native American Deputy Sheriff is assigned as Constant’s local contact. They use a gas station security camera to identify license plates of cars that drove past the park where the second killing occurred, hoping one of the drivers might have witnessed something. That strategy brings them into contact with Glen Hope, who was driving his daughter Tamara to her college residence in a nearby town. They stopped to eat lunch in the park, but they give Constant no useful information. Tamara will later become an attempted murder victim, perhaps because BRK believes she is a witness who needs to be removed.

Although her investigation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, a couple of big dumb guys attack Constant. In the story’s background is a newly discovered treaty that may grant an indigenous tribe the rights to certain land. The attempted thrashing may have been inspired by white supremacists in the Eagle Brotherhood who think that Constant’s presence in the area has something to do with the treaty. They don’t realize that Constant used to be a professional boxer. She likes nothing more than punching big dumb guys. She thinks the guys have been hired to attack her but someone with a rifle foils her plan to beat the truth out of them.

Other key characters are in the business of fencing stolen goods or money laundering. The disparate parts of the story — probably too many for a novella — come together when Constant, using her brain rather than her fists, pieces together clues that reveal an explanation for the killings. She exposes the killer, or thinks she does, but the story continues.

Like most modern crime novels that depend on plot twists, the reader must accept implausible developments for the sake of enjoying the story. What seems to be a final twist at the end is soon followed by another. And another. And one for good measure at the very end. All the twisting struck me as overkill, but such is the way of the modern crime novel. The ending is a bit abrupt, but at least it puts an end to all the twists.

The Rule of Threes is better than the last serial killer story that Deaver wrote for Amazon Original Stories. It might be criticized as formulaic if the formula is “stuff as many surprises into the story as possible.” That is, in fact, an approach that Deaver often takes.

The notion that a character is obsessed with “threes” is gimmicky but contributes nothing to the story. Constant is a fairly one-dimensional character so plot is everything. While I wasn’t entirely sold on the plot, it moves quickly and is reasonably entertaining. The word count is sufficiently high that the novella offers a meatier reading experience than many Amazon Short Originals, including others that Deaver has written, so the story earns an unenthusiastic recommendation.

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The Watchmaker's Hand by Jeffery Deaver

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on November 28, 2023

The Watchmaker has been a recurring villain in recent Lincoln Rhyme novels. The last novel suggested that the Watchmaker would soon return to seek revenge against Rhyme. His attempt is one of several plot threads that make The Watchmaker’s Hand one of stronger entries in this entertaining series.

Rhyme is a forensic scientist confined to a wheelchair. He works as a consultant for New York law enforcement with the assistance of Amelia Sachs, his NYPD wife. She collects evidence from crime scenes, as does NYPD patrol officer Ron Pulaski. Detective Lon Siletto, Rhyme’s former partner and a senior officer in Major Cases, is Rhyme’s principal contact within NYPD. Lyle Spencer purports to be a human lie detector, relying on the pseudo-science of kinesic analysis. Rhyme's caregiver, Thom Reston, helps out with research and odd jobs when he isn’t feeding all the members of Rhyme’s team. Series fans might be happy to know that all the supporting cast members play significant roles in The Watchmaker’s Hand.

The novel begins with a crane collapse and the heroic effort of the crane operator to prevent the machine from crashing into a densely populated office building. The collapse is followed by a demand from a previously unknown terrorist organization to deed certain city properties to a nonprofit corporation for conversion into low-income housing. Since housing advocates do not see mass murder as the best means to their end, Rhyme knows that the demand is meant to divert attention from its real purpose. Figuring out what that purpose might be is the novel’s central mystery, one that has Rhyme and his team chasing theories to unproductive destinations.

Other key events involve the unsolved theft of New York City infrastructure documents, including maps of tunnels and engineering plans for buildings; a police detective who spies on Rhyme; a car accident that leads to the loss of Pulaski’s badge; two politicians who are running for Congress; and a potential plot to assassinate the president. While these events seem to be unrelated, fans of the series will count on Jeffery Deaver to create an intricate plot that links them together. After unpeeling layers of deception, Rhyme will eventually arrive at the core of the scheme. It is no spoiler to suggest that the Watchmaker will be instrumental, but the real mystery is the identity of the criminal who hired the Watchmaker.

The plot is no more farfetched than most modern crime novels and, unlike many, it holds together. Deaver builds in multiple scenes of rapid action that turn a mystery into a thriller. Whether Rhyme will prevail against the Watchmaker is never much in doubt. The only question is how Rhyme will manage to survive. In the end, a new villain emerges (Rhyme calls this one the Engineer) who will likely appear in a future novel to bedevil the lives of Rhyme and his friends.

The characters are all true to the personalities they have developed over the course of the series. This novel is notable for developing the personality of the Watchmaker and, to a lesser extent, the Engineer. They become characters the reader can understand without cheering for their success. Rhyme’s forensic wizardry is always entertaining and sounds plausible (my knowledge of chemistry and geology is insufficient to make me a credible fact checker). On the whole, the excitement factor in The Watchmaker’s Hand and the strength of the plot make this installment one of my favorites in the series.

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Hunting Time by Jeffery Deaver

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on November 22, 2022

Readers of the Colter Shaw series will know that Shaw was raised as a survivalist. He makes his living collecting rewards. The rewards are usually offered to find missing people, although they are sometimes offered by the government to provide information leading to the capture of fugitives.

Shaw begins the novel doing something like a sting to thwart the theft of a portable nuclear device from the private company that made it. That’s not the kind of assignment Shaw usually takes but a friend recommended him for the gig and he needs to earn a living. He works with the company’s security officer, Sonja Nilsson, who took a job in the industrial pit of Ferrington because someone published stolen government documents that outed her as a former military assassin.

The company's CEO, Marty Harmon, soon hires Shaw for another project. The company’s top engineer, Allison Parker, is on the run. Her ex-husband, Jon Merritt, went to prison for beating her. Now he’s out of prison. He told another prisoner that he planned to kill Allison and his daughter Hannah. Allison hit the road with Hannah, although Hannah doesn’t really believe her father would harm her.

Merritt is a former cop with a reputation for heroism. The law enforcement effort to find him is unenthusiastic. Harmon wants Shaw to find and protect Allison until Merritt is returned to prison.

The story follows the path of an action thriller. Two tough guys try to chase down Allison while Merritt uses his skill as a former police detective to deduce her hiding spot. Shaw and Sonja follow the trail, pausing once with the intent to shag before they remember the higher duty they owe to Allison and Hannah. The story gives action fans the usual array of fistfights, shootouts, and explosions.

As thriller heroes go, Shaw is more cerebral than violent, making the series a welcome change from thrillers that spend more time describing guns in loving detail than building characterization. One of the characters echoes NRA propaganda by claiming that an assault rifle is no different than a deer rifle, as if anyone hunts deer with an M4. The NRA proudly used the term assault rifle before it decided to discourage its members from doing so. Gun enthusiasts often gravitate to tough guy thrillers so Jeffery Deaver may have included a gratuitous recitation of propaganda to please those readers. But since the guy who makes that claim is a murderer, maybe Deaver is subtly sending the opposite message. Who knows? I can only say that Shaw is handy with a gun but doesn’t make them his life.

Shaw has the annoying habit of calculating odds in terms of percentages. He decides there is a “10 percent chance” of something happening when it would be more accurate to say there is a “low risk,” as he has no actuarial or statistical basis for the percentages he invents. The percentages are a gimmick. He also likes to quote rules that his survivalist father taught him. Rules are another gimmick that have become popular in modern thrillers. As much as thriller writers like to substitute gimmicks for personalities, I wish they wouldn’t.

Fortunately, the gimmicks don’t distract from the plot, which quickly moves to the kind of resolution that readers seem to like. The story takes some welcome (because they are unexpected) twists — not every character is who he or she seems to be — but by the end, characters generally lie in the bed they’ve made. This isn’t the kind of novel that allows an innocent character to die or evil deeds to go unpunished.

This novel seems to set up the next one, continuing Shaw’s efforts on behalf of a corporate employer and perhaps giving him an opportunity to finally shag Sonja. Whatever happens, Deaver has established the Colter Shaw series as one of the better choices for fans of action novels.

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The Midnight Lock by Jeffery Deaver

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on November 30, 2021

The Midnight Lock weaves together several intriguing and timely themes. A tabloid publisher buys the rights to scandalous stories and kills the stories in exchange for political favors. A moderator for a YouTube clone needs to decide whether videos telling political lies or promoting violence should be deleted from the site. New York’s mayor, plagued with bad publicity about unsuccessful law enforcement efforts, decides to take the city’s failure out on private contractors rather than blaming the city’s police.

One of those private contractors is Lincoln Rhyme, the famed New York City criminalist who doesn’t let a wheelchair get in the way of solving crimes by analyzing flakes of dust. As the novel begins, Lincoln is being cross-examined in a murder case that he appears to have solved by analyzing six grains of sand. The cross-examination suggests that he was sloppy. The jury wisely decides not to base a murder verdict on six grains of sand. Outraged over unfavorable publicity about cases that the police seem to have botched, the mayor decides to shift the focus away from the city and blames Rhyme for the verdict. He cancels the city’s relationship with Rhyme and, in what seems like overkill, threatens to jail him for obstructing justice if he investigates any further crimes, and to discipline any cop who helps him.

The new rule might make Rhyme’s marital life awkward, given that he is married to Amelia Sachs, a cop who is intimately involved in his investigations. He also works with a team of cops who promptly ignore the edict and help Rhyme pursue The Locksmith, a fellow who picks complicated locks, enters the residences of women who live alone, and gazes at them. The well-founded fear is that The Locksmith will grow bored with gazing at women and will move on to more violent crimes. The reader will learn The Locksmith’s identity before it becomes apparent to Rhyme and Amelia.

It isn’t immediately clear how the family dispute over a publishing empire will play into the story. Imagine a Rupert Murdoch clone who gains a conscience and comes to believe that he should sell his holdings and invest the proceeds in an institute to advance ethical journalism. Hard to imagine, yes, but it’s easy to imagine that his family members will be displeased. Nor is clear how a social media influencer who has the credibility and following of Q will connect to the larger plot. A social media moderator is another key character who stars in a few chapters before the moderator’s role in the story becomes apparent.

Rhyme novels are always interesting. The Midnight Lock has less energy than some of the other books in the series, although it does give an action role to an ex-cop whose heroic exploits might allow him to return to the ranks of law enforcers. The story seems to be winding down long before it ends. That’s always a sign of misdirection. In a contrived ending, we learn that things were not as they seemed, but the surprise ending isn’t likely to surprise many readers. Still, the plot elements fit together nicely and it’s impossible not to learn something new while reading a Lincoln Rhyme novel. This installment isn’t special, but it's entertaining.

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Cause of Death by Jeffery Deaver

Published digitally by Amazon Original Stories on July 29, 2021

Patience “Pax” Addison travels quite often to do charity work, leaving behind her husband, a history professor named Jon Talbot. Jon gets a call telling him that Pax died in a car accident. Jon sees a man lurking in the woods during Pax’s funeral. When a police detective wants some additional information from Jon for the accident report, Jon wonders why a detective is filling out accident reports. When Jon learns that Pax’s phone and computer were not recovered at the accident scene, the circumstances of Pax’s death suddenly seem suspicious. He travels to the scene with the detective and finds evidence suggesting that there might have been more to the accident than hitting a deer.

The plot will obviously turn the history professor into a detective — a role that, in Jon’s opinion, history professors play every day. His investigation makes him wonder whether his wife was having an affair and whether her lover might have killed her. The lurking man is apparently following Jon, perhaps with nefarious intent. Jon’s investigation and the death of someone who might have been involved in the accident make the police wonder whether Jon might have killed Pax. An experienced crime fiction reader will suspect that the apparently unconnected drowning of a woman must be related to the plot or it wouldn’t be in the story.

As the reader ponders whether Jon’s theory (or possibly the police detective’s suspicion about Jon) might be true, Jeffery Deaver introduces a plot twist and a bit of action that leads to a surprising resolution of the mystery. Unlike many modern crime novels, the surprise is credible. Not particularly likely, but I can live with unlikely for the sake of a good story. As Deaver often does, he tells a good story here. The happy ending isn’t forced, in part because Jon will never be happy about the death his beloved wife, even if she kept some secrets from him.

The story is short; longer than the usual definition of “short story” but shorter than the usual definition of “novel.” It probably falls on the border between novelette and novella. Since Amazon hasn’t priced it as a novel, length will probably matter only to readers who only want to invest in books that take more time to read.

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