The Vanished Man

The Vanished Man by Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver’s books, especially the Lincoln Rhyme stories, seem to progressively get better.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each one of them, and they all tend to follow similar patterns, but he knows how to throw enough new elements to keep things fresh.

Our psychopathic killer that Lincoln is chasing this time is a professional ex-magician.  Now, when I say “magician”, I’m not talking about the guy that you hire for your third grader’s birthday party.  No, this guy is Las Vegas worthy.  This is what drives the main suspense through this book.  If a guy can stand on a stage at the MGM Grand and make himself disappear amidst burning flames with a wave of a magic wand, just imagine how creative he can escape from a crime scene after committing a murder.  So Lincoln really has his work cut out for him this time.  The author, as usual, does a very credible job of also educating his readers about a particular topic.  We learn a lot about magic, illusionists, the work one must put into to make such things convincing, etc.  

Hint: If you’re in law enforcement and you ever need to arrest a professional magician, you’ll probably need more than just a simple pair of handcuffs.

Of course, no Lincoln Rhyme book is complete without his partner Amelia Sachs.  They work well in this book as well, or as well as they can.  You see, Lincoln Rhyme is a quadriplegic.  So he’s mostly confined to working in his exquisite crime lab overlooking Central Park while Sachs does most of the legwork.  Yes, their romantically attached, yet this book seems to skip over a lot of that, which is nice for a change.  Let’s focus, boys and girls, on the actually plot, shall we?  Lincoln seems a tad less surly here than usual, which was also a bit of a refreshing change.

If you look closely within these pages, you find a lot of things that seem to happen incredibly coincidently, and there’s lot of disbelief that must be suspended.  If you try to focus on how believable that some of these events are, you’re likely to be disappointed with the book.  In other words, to use an analogy, when your watching a magician, it’s best not to always try to figure how the guy does a certain trick that just blew your mind.  Instead, just enjoy the show.  You’ll exit the theatre being much more satisfied.