cover image The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel

The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel

Jeffery Deaver, . . Simon & Schuster, $26.95 (432pp) ISBN 978-1-4165-4997-0

In bestseller Deaver’s entertaining eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Cold Moon ), Rhyme, a forensic consultant for the NYPD, and his detective partner, Amelia Sachs, take on a psychotic mastermind who uses data mining—“the business of the twenty-first century”—not only to select and hunt down his victims but also to frame the crimes on complete innocents. Rhyme is reluctantly drawn into a case involving his estranged cousin, Arthur, who’s been charged with first-degree murder. But when Rhyme and his crew look into the strange set of circumstances surrounding his cousin’s alleged crime, they discover tangential connections to a company that specializes in collecting and analyzing consumer data. Further investigation leads them to some startlingly Orwellian revelations: Big Brother is watching your every move and could be a homicidal maniac. The topical subject matter makes the story line particularly compelling, while longtime fans will relish Deaver’s intimate exploration of a tragedy from Rhyme’s adolescence. (June)