The Cutting Edge (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel)

As with all Lincoln Rhyme novels Jeffery Deaver has again made a very wonderful story line with all the twists and misdirection that he is famous for.
Excellent plot and attention to detail. Love it.

Can a single story offer more to enjoy than Jefferey Deaver's "The Cutting Edge?" Mystery, thrills, suspense, and even narrative---interesting in its own right. Oh yeah, and add a twist toward the end. It all keeps your brain working on overdrive.

Jeffery Deaver alternates between Lincoln Rhyme and Kathryn Dance novels. In THE CUTTING EDGE Linc returns. With Amelia. And Thom. And Lon. And the whole gang. A serial killer calling himself The Promisor is terrorizing Manhattan and Brooklyn, killing engaged couples. At first it appeared that he might be a diamond thief, but then it becomes clear that it's the couples themselves who are setting him off. "Clear," of course, is a totally provisional word in a Deaver novel. Nothing is clear until we get to page 430, aka the end. There are several hallmarks to a Deaver novel. One is a great McGuffin (here the whole process of producing industrial and jewelry-level diamonds) and the second is a set of largely-unpredictable reversals which bedevil the reader in the novel's third act. Sometimes there are three reversals. I won't report the count for THE CUTTING EDGE because I don't want to spoil the reader's experience.

Deaver is the master of the contemporary procedural. In addition to the fascinating material on the work of a 'diamandaire' there is the added bonus in a Lincoln Rhyme novel of Linc's astounding knowledge of Manhattan, particularly its geology and built landscape which enables the detectives to infer crime (and other) locations from the trace left on a perp's Florsheims. This sort of material is even more impressive when you realize that among the hundreds of thousands of Deaver readers are a significant number of individuals with unique expertise that they can marshal instantly to challenge Linc's forensic lore. JD is challenging and delighting his readers in the same way that Linc is challenging and conquering arrogant perps.

The bottom line is that this is a solid Deaver novel. The use of the diamond ethos for his McGuffin is a very wise choice. I once contemplated doing a novel on the diamond cartel and quickly discovered that these are very 'competitive' people. They play for keeps. We interviewed a candidate for a professorial position who had written her dissertation on the cartel. She had done much of her research in the British Library and told me that she was certain that she was being followed and that she found her papers disturbed when she had to leave her reading site temporarily.

While I thought that one of the 'reversal perps' was flagged earlier, principally by process of elimination from the available list of dramatis personae, the novel is full of surprises, excellent local color, and sweet (and a few sour) interactions among the members of the core ensemble cast.

Bottom line: every Deaver fan will embrace THE CUTTING EDGE and be ready for more.

The numerous spelling and grammatical errors were distracting, as was the overly descriptive narrative. Phrases such as “Amelia swept out her mobile phone”. Really? Swept? Not up to the usual standard.

Enjoyed the entire book. Interesting details about the diamond industry, plenty of twists and turns, and as always the characters are multifaceted. Appreciated the complete ending very much; books with cliffhanger ending are a ripoff and becoming a common practice.

Enjoyed the entire book. Interesting details about the diamond industry, plenty of twists and turns, and as always the characters are multifaceted. Appreciated the complete ending very much; books with cliffhanger ending are a ripoff and becoming a common practice.