The Watchmaker's Hand (Lincoln Rhyme Novel)

Jeff Deaver’s new novel carries a jacket blurb from PEOPLE magazine: “The Master of Ticking-Bomb Suspense.” Deaver is doing many things but he handles the ticking-time-bomb business sparingly and deliberately. He is actually the master of two things. The first is end-of-the-novel reversals (and they are usually plentiful). The second is ‘information.’ One of the things that crime fiction readers enjoy is learning things about obscure, fascinating subjects. This probably goes back to the puzzle novels of the first generation/golden age crime writers. The subject is now far advanced. Michael Connelly tells us all about courtroom techniques and he studies the city of the Angels street by street, alleyway by alleyway. Jeff Deaver studies everything. He knows NYC intimately, but also the chemical components of the grit in its highways and byways. He knows communication systems and information technology and ordnance and chemistry and…well, just about everything.

In his new novel he is up against his classic villain, termed the ‘Watchmaker’ (and, yes, JD knows timepieces and time theory). That bad boy is bringing down construction cranes using exotic acid devices and they can do a lot of damage, particularly when they’re falling on things like hospitals (hospitals with rooms filled with chemicals and gases that can do beaucoup harm to the patients, docs and nurses).

But is this all a diversion? I won’t offer any SPOILERS, but I will say that the nature of the reversals associated with JD’s third acts have changed in THE WATCHMAKER’S HAND. As usual, all of the boxes are ticked: fascinating characters, fully-realized setting, masterful plotting, and delicious gobs of information on interesting subjects. If there is a criticism it would be that everything is very, very complicated at the end and there may be too much to plow through for the average reader.

Anyway, it’s good to be back in town with Lincoln Rhyme, his wife and his team. Five stars.

Thanks to JD for a nice Christmas present for all of us.

Deaver’s latest brings welcomes back Charles Vespasian Hale, aka “The Watchmaker.” He has returned to New York with the intention, among much else, to terminate Lincoln Rhyme with extreme prejudice. This allows Deaver to pull out all of those proverbial stops and provide us with surprise after surprise, and surprises that end up not being surprises.

Early in the book Hale talks of watch complications. I.e., a standard-issue watch that tells you only the time is simple (and Hale at one point says your beloved old quartz watch actually keeps slightly more accurate time than the finest Swiss mechanical masterpieces). Add a date window, you have one complication. Add more, and you have more complications.

Just like this book.

With crashing construction cranes (there’s a terrific scene set in a hospital that has a date with one), crooked cops, a co-conspirator, and the usual cast (including a family of falcons), it’s very suspenseful, and fun to read in its noir way. By now you know if you like Rhyme or not, and if you do, here’s one more. Deaver still does this better than anyone else, and if this one has shimmers of self-parody about it, maybe that’s just another nudge nudge wink wink from the master.

We’ll find out soon enough: toward the end (duh, where else would it be?} a setup for the next book sneaks in among the tied-up loose ends.

Notes and asides:

. There really are falcons in New York. As the author says they do not hang out on low places. They prefer church steeples, bridge towers, and the Chrysler Building.

. Deaver fans who visit Manhattan in hopes of finding those streets in the village named here will be disappointed. On the other hand, E 89th Street is certainly real enough.

. Stay away from Hydrofluoric acid.

Who can argue with the success of Jeffery Deaver but the style this is written in appears choppy and a little bit hard for me to follow. I haven’t read many of his books so I am not sure if this is his style or if it is unique to this book. A good storyline but I was disappointed some of the characters will most likely not be part of a future writing. But one never knows. This books pace is a bit rollercoaster like with misdirection and peaks and a few valleys. I read 30-50 pages at a time so it was a little difficult to follow. Characters are pretty well developed for a series book. All in all, the book is worthwhile and entertaining.

As regular Deaver readers know, The Watchmaker is Lincoln Rhymes’ Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Homes’s nemesis). This may be Charles Hale’s last stand.

Lincoln and Amelia are confronted with construction crane assaults. Someone is weakening the counterbalances on the cranes with acid. When Amelia walks the scene, she’s almost overcome by the remnants of the acid and a construction worker is killed.

At first Lincoln thinks the Watchmaker has been hired by a businessman who could think he could take advantage of the destruction caused by the collapsing cranes, to get some cheap investments.

With help from his friends, Lincoln is able to figure out how the cranes are being sabotaged. The Watchmaker isn’t risking capture himself; he’s doing it with drones. One of Lincoln’s experts is able to trace the drones, and keep track of where they’ve been going since the initial attacks. He hasn’t been able to track down a businessman who might benefit from the attacks, but the target seems to be a united states senator and possibly the president himself. Wrong again.

This new contest between the Watchmaker and Lincoln isn’t the most believable. Charles Hales is usually smart enough to get somebody else to do his dirty work for him, and he certainly wouldn’t show up in person to spy on Lincoln from a park near his office and even confront him in his own sanctuary where Lincoln has all the advantages.

Something else new in this one is The Watchmaker’s love interest. She’s missing at the end of the novel. Can we expect to see her in the next one?