The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme Novel)

This is my first Jeffery Deaver book and I thought it was an outstanding work of fiction. The Bone Collector movie was based on this book and I have to say that the movie stays pretty close to the original story.

I really enjoyed this book a great deal.

Lincoln (Linc) Rhyme is a former criminalist and accomplished author who is a quadriplegic after being injured in the line of duty. When we first meet Linc, he is a bit ornery and loathsome of his physical state. He only has the use of his shoulders, neck, head, and ring finger. He has contacted a doctor turned euthanist about killing him and eliminating his physical tomorment. But then the serial crimes begin and he is contacted by a former colleague with a request that he use his profiling abilities to help them apprehend the suspect.

Link meets Officer Amelia Sachs who discovers the body of the first victim. Linc finds her intelligent, bold, and perceptive. The two quickly develop a rapport and Amelia becomes his protégé. Now I will cast one disparaging stone at this line of the story. I am not going to say that this isn't possible. However, I would guess that it is highly unlikely that a brilliant, well known, and accomplished criminalist would choose a nobody officer to be his protégé, regardless of her potential. The instant connection between the characters feels a bit contrived. Amelia begins to operate and think like a criminalist (again unlikely without proper training) as she is receiving on the ground guidance from Linc.

Linc, Amelia, and the team of officers embark on a mission of trying to beat the clock and outwit the killer before he kills his next victim. They lose the second victim because there are unable to reach her before she is virtually boiled alive but manage to save a few others. They save the last victim and her daughter only to have that salvation blown to smithereens by the victim at the end.

This was a fast paced suspense/thriller that keeps you guessing right up to the very end. I was aghast when I realized who the actual killer was. Truly, he was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Brilliant and captivating!

I saw the movie, “The Bone Collector,” a few years ago. I remember, Denzel Washington lying in a hospital bed, and that’s about all I remember.

I bought the book last week using a very sophisticated system to pick books, “Eeeny, Meeny, Miny Moe.” I had no idea what I was spending my hard earned money on. Jeffery Deaver owes me some money. I was late to several jobs because I stayed up all night reading the book. There is no warning anywhere on the book cover about keeping readers up till wee hours in the morning. Where the hell is, Jeffery Deaver, anyway? If he hasn’t won an award for this book I’ll personally hand deliver one.

The book is about a Serial killer on the loose in the streets of Manhattan. The killer tortures his victims then lets them die slowly. The police are usually one step behind the killer leaving the reader in nail biting suspense; wondering if the police will save the victim in time.

Sachs, one of the main characters in the book is a women cop. I fell in love with Sachs. She was definitely marriage material. She was courageous, attractive, and she can handle a muscle car.

The two main characters, Sachs and Lincoln Rhyme had a debate on the subject of suicide. Both main characters presented a strong argument. The argument scared the hell out of me because the main character, Rhyme presented such a strong argument for suicide I agreed with him.

The book was powerful. It made me appreciate life, and realize just how fragile it is. At any moment anyone of us readers can become quadriplegic, or even worse.

I really felt for the main character, Lincoln Rhyme. I fought back tears for Lincoln. The book made me think of an old friend who’s in the same situation as Lincoln. I haven’t seen my friend in years because I couldn’t bear to see him in that condition. After reading the book I looked my old friend up.

Thank you, Jeffery Deaver for such an exciting ride.

I have to admit that I really like the movie and have seen it a few times over the years playing on the tv. Last time I noticed that that there was a book the movie had been taken from and I immediately decided to check it out.

Overall I found the book very enjoyable, except for two problems. One, I kept seeing Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie in their roles instead of the actual story, plus I found myself skimming over the crime scenes from the movie, then realizing that some of them were quite different and having to read them again. Two, I really dislike books that end on a cliffhanger, but that’s my opinion.

STORY BRIEF: Lincoln is a modern day Sherlock-Holmes-type police detective in New York City. He is an expert with collecting and analyzing evidence. He can tell where someone has been by the dirt on their clothes. He was in charge of forensic investigations until he was injured by a falling roof beam, hitting his neck. Now a quadriplegic, he can only move his neck, head, and one finger. He has not worked for a few years.

A serial killer, obsessed with bones, kidnaps two people, buries one of them near a railroad track with a hand sticking out of the dirt, and then calls in the location to the cops. Amelia is a nearby patrol cop assigned to search the area. She climbs down a dirt hill rather than use the installed ladder. She stops a coming train. She stops traffic. All this to preserve the crime scene. Lon is a detective who used to work with Lincoln. Although Lincoln is retired, Lon asks for Lincoln's help. Lincoln is reluctant until he sees the report showing clues left by the killer: a pile of asbestos, an iron bolt, and two pieces of paper with 3:30 and 823 printed on them. From these Lincoln realizes where the next victim may be. He calls Lon and agrees to work on the case, but he wants Amelia working with him. He wants her in charge of collecting evidence at the crime scenes. He likes her instincts about preserving the crime scene. The killer continues to grab victims, set them up for death, and leave clues.

REVIEWER'S OPINION: This is a well done crime suspense thriller. I enjoyed and was impressed with Lincoln's amazing evidence analysis, deduction, and intuition. I enjoyed the developing relationship with Amelia. I liked her abilities, smarts, and her story as well. The ending is a feel good ending. For a while I had some disbelief about a serial killer purposely leaving clues for the police. Each set of clues was about how and when he would kill the next victim. This seemed a bit contrived. It felt like a scavenger hunt. But by the end of the book, it made sense. So try not to question the believability, just go with. I doubt this kind of thing would happen in real life, but it's an entertaining story. (No stupidity.) There are some gruesome scenes which might bother some, for example, rats eating someone alive who is tied up and cut open.

This was made into a movie. I think I saw it, but I forget how I felt about it.

DATA: Story length: 416 pages. Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words. Sexual content: none. Setting: current day New York City, NY. Copyright: 1997. Genre: crime suspense thriller. Ending: feel good and smiling

in 2010 I had an accident that left me a quadriplegic. One of the first books I was encouraged to read when, months later, I could access ebooks was The Bone Collector, with its central character, Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic. there are already enough comments on this site assessing its quality as a work of crime fiction. In this review, I will respond to its presentation of quadriplegia. My issue with the novel is that it presents a stereotypical and biased portrayal of a disabled character. Consider the following;

1. Deaver (and most of his readers - the book rates 4 1/2 stars on Amazon) presumes that death, even by suicide (performed by heroic medical rebels), is potentially better than life as a quadriplegic. running alongside the narrative of crime is an ongoing discussion of assisted suicide that bookends the novel. what this reveals is the widely held assumption that a quad is essentially no longer fully human, no longer really alive, without the potential for joy or the opportunity to contribute to others. My experience, however, is that SCI people want to live and are driven (like everyone) to make the most out of life, whatever its challenges. Of course some quads at some point will contemplate suicide, as do many people in all walks of life. But to have suicide as a major theme of a book centred on an "heroic" quadriplegic does an absolute injustice to the mostly driven people that make up the spinal-cord injury (SCI) community. Deaver might claim that he has Rhyme come to realise at the end of the novel that life is better than death, but this conclusion is a very close run thing - and might have gone the other way if Rhyme was not needed for subsequent books in the series.
2. Notwithstanding his access to mobility aids, Rhyme spends most of his time in bed shunning the company of friends. Honestly, this is an absurd portrayal of a quadriplegic. While bed rest might sometimes be forced upon us, no one chooses to stay there, locked away from friends and family. Of course sometimes wheelchair users are forced into exclusion, when buildings and other social spaces are inaccessible - a too common reality; take a look at your own home and ask yourself, could a quadriplegic visit? Accessibility aside, even the most down and out SCI patient I have met at least gets out of bed to have a smoke and get drunk at the pub - a fact that indicates that a person's character and habits before an SCI inform his/her habits afterward. Unless Rhyme was a depressive loner prior to his injury (and we are led to believe this was not the case) it is extremely unlikely he would become such a person afterwards.
3. Rhyme is made wealthy by a payout but the money seems to have been wasted on him - he spends it on trinkets (pillows fit for Kings) but could do with far less. This reflects the common view that insurance payouts to victims of accidents are over the top, examples of the absurdity of a legal system that supposedly favours disabled people and leaves the rest of the community with inflated insurance. Now, apart from the fact that the vast majority of sci people live below the poverty line, often struggling to get meaningful employment and barely surviving on pensions that are totally inadequate, even those with substantial payouts are not living extravagantly. Most have had to repay massive medical expenses, and have ongoing costs that a payout will have to satisfy over the course of a lifetime.
4. Deaver has the sight of a quadriplegic as being shocking. Rhyme is labelled "a creature" and even the smell of the room in which he lives has a "visceral aroma". Almost every character who comes to visit Rhyme in his bedroom responds to his quadriplegia with shock and a certain horror - as though such reaction is normal and acceptable. How odd. No doubt, in the early stages of injury in ICU, a quadriplegic hooked up to wires and tubes and monitors looks confronting. Thereafter, however, they look and smell about as horrible/nice as any of the weird people that make up the human race. Even ventilated quadriplegics get dressed up and look pretty "normal" - whatever we mean by that term.
5. The dehumanisation of Rhyme extends to the assumption that as a quadriplegic he is used to being prodded and poked and showered so that all sense of privacy has been set aside. Now, it is true that sci people learn to appreciate the body for what it is - a body! But that does not mean that the really "manly crip" (to cite to Deaver) has no sense of personal dignity.
6. In an attempt to indicate that he has some inside knowledge of the SCI community, Deaver has Rhyme describe himself as a "crip." Now it may be that sci people themselves use such labels, taking what is pejorative and turning an insult into a label of power. Such relabelling is our right. But it is not a right that Deaver has earned, especially with his prejudiced portrayal of Lincoln Rhyme.
7. Finally, the dehumanisation of Rhyme is made complete with his a-sexuality. Every male in The Bone Collector responds sexually to the beauty of Amelia Sachs ... except Rhyme. In later novels we discover that it is precisely this that attracts her to him. It is as though Rhyme has been removed from the heterosexual community and taken on the role the media traditionally give to gay men - best friends with beautiful women sick of being objectified. And so rhyme is portrayed as a eunuch, as only half a man - as utterly excluded from sexuality. In fact, however, female and male sci people remain as fully sexual beings, capable of admiring and even lusting after beauty. Again, it is only able-bodied people who imagine that paralysis destroys sexuality. This review is not the place to set out to describe the sexual life of paraplegics and quadriplegics but it is enough to note that the emasculated Rhyme is an invention - a projection from an able-bodied person as to what life, without sex, must be like for a disabled person.

What becomes apparent is that Jeffrey Deaver knows nothing about sci people. But does this matter? He is, after all, writing a novel, and its purpose is entertainment not social commentary. Of course, it might not matter to able-bodied people just looking for a good read. But it does matter to me. A novel that purports to elevate a quadriplegic as a "hero" should tell the story of a realistic disabled person. Lincoln Rhyme should not have to be pushed by able-bodied people to get out of bed. He should not have to be saved by a beautiful able-bodied woman. At the least, he should not be a cardboard cutout of the able-bodied imagination, a mass of stereotypes and only half a man. The SCI community deserve better.