Ex-Library copy

“The Digger looks like you, the Digger looks like me.” “ - ..., a functioning human being who does nothing but kill.”

And the Digger is being chased down by Parker Kincaid, a handwriting and document analyzer par none! And the title of the book comes from his work - it is “an unusual mark above the lowercase ‘i’s’ - the tail of the dot went straight upward, so that it resembled a falling drop of water.” Nice huh? An expert, much like Lincoln Rhyme, who has a cameo appearance starting on page 122!
I really enjoyed this book, and it read quickly with good action and pacing! The Digger is a great 'bad guy' and the plot twists were unexpected, and enjoyed, by me! The ending totally worked for me too! For me, throw out the love story and the subplot with the witness protection guy, and this edges up to 5 stars!

... click ... ( )

Interesting but not a great payoff. I like the forensics side, but certain things were too obvious. ( )

I absolutely *love* the story idea behind this book, but I just couldn't get through it. Why?

The writing style. He used short phrases. Bits and pieces. Not whole sentences. Added suspense? No. Not at all. It was annoying.

Imagine that for hundreds of pages. No thanks! If you can get past that (or maybe listen to the audiobook), I think it could make for a really interesting book. It's just not my thing, though. ( )

A stand-alone novel with a short and welcome appearance of Lincoln Rhyme. The two main characters here are Special Agent Margaret Lukas,in charge of her first big case and Parker Kincaid,who is an expert forensic document examiner. They are pitted against a killer known as the 'Digger' who is literally controlled by a criminal mastermind. The killings take place on New Year's Eve 1999 and increase in intensity as time progresses.
The two criminals are well invented and the idea behind the crime is a good one. The Kincaid character however comes over as rather a dull dog and somewhat of a wet.
The final verdict is that although this is not one of Deaver's best efforts,it has quite a lot going for it and is definitely worth reading if only to re-meet,albeit briefly,Lincoln Rhyme. ( )