The Skin Collector

The Skin Collector – by Jeffery Deaver

OK. I’ve used this analogy before with other authors that tire me out after a while: Imagine you discover a great vacation spot. You love it so much that you go back the next year. It soon becomes a staple and you continue to go year after year.  Then, one year it hits you.  You’ve become tired of this wonderful vacation spot. Not only do you not really enjoying going anymore, but it seems to now be a bit of a drag.  This is how I felt after reading my 25^th (or so) Jeffery Deaver book.  It’s not a bad book. I’m just becoming tired of the overly familiar formula.

Lincoln Rhyme and his entourage have a new psychopathic killer haunting the streets of New York City.  He’s a bizarre tattoo artist who, after kidnapping his victims, tattoos them with some sort of poison concoction as opposed to ink.  He has a bizarre skin fetish apparently. Of course, he always leaves an encrypted message on his victim’s skin which gives the crime solvers more to ponder as they try to solve the mysterious case.

If you know Jeffery Deaver, you’re aware that he had a similarly titled book called “The Bone Collector”.  The likeness with the title of this book is not a coincidence. It seems as though the perpetrator also has some bizarre likeness for the older, now solved case, and this allows for comparisons and connections when solving the caper as well.  This is ok, I guess, but it also relies on readers to have also had read the earlier book (which I had) and remember key elements (which I had not).  There’s also a sub plot involving another Lincoln Rhyme book “The Cold Moon”.  I won’t go into details, but I wish the author would have crafted the story a bit differently and not have to bring up past stories in order to flesh (pardon the pun) this story out.

Jeffery Deaver is famous for throwing a massive curve ball near the end of his stories that show us that very little of what we have been reading is actually as it seems. For the most part, these abrupt detours work. There have even been some books of his that I found rather sub-par, yet when the big “revelation” appeared, it gave me a much higher opinion of the book.  Sadly, this book does the opposite. Throughout the first 2/3 of this book, I actually enjoyed it overall, but when the “twist” came, I felt a bit cheated.  I remember thinking “Really??”  “Seriously??”  It was pretty stupid and hoaky.

Again, though, my disgust could be that I’ve seen and read all of this so many times.  I mean, it’s now somewhat expected.  We read about the crime supposedly being “over” and “solved”, yet we read about Lincoln Rhyme staring at his evidence-filled whiteboards at the conclusion of the case.  He feels “something isn’t right”.  He then has a sudden, immediate revelation and then goes into an immediate panic.  He then manages to save himself/Amelia Sachs/a random stranger/the entire civilized planet with only seconds to spare.  We then read about how Lincoln had his brilliant epiphany and how all can now relax that he managed to save the day yet again.

I’ll still give this book a somewhat favorable review.  I’m guessing you’ll like this book more than I did if you haven’t read all of the other Lincoln Rhyme adventures already.  I used to really like whenever Jeffery Deaver released a new Lincoln Rhyme book.  I now wish he would retire his character and move on to something fresh.   Faithful readers know that Deaver HAS actually done this with his newer Katherine Dance books, but those are hit and miss as well.   Perhaps he should focus on stories with only fresh, new characters and not have them show up in multiple works.  That might be the trick.