Tense, fraught and mostly believable, Deaver stays one step ahead until the film style shock ending. ( )

Will not be any spoilers here. Once upon a time 7 maidens were kidnapped, by 3 thugs. A special negotiator, mean, grumpy, his poop does not stink old man, was called in. I recently discovered Jeffrey Deaver and was so horribly disappointed by This book; when one of the HTs tossed out the N word, I was done.

Did not finish. I will not finish books that involve the murder of children

Deaver is a really good writer, and this book starts off as a 5-star. He’s generally crime fiction, but this one is more suspense (or maybe thriller). You know at the beginning what happens and who the bad guys are so the story is what follows. What Deaver is good at is the makings; take the worst possible scenario... and then double it... and then double it again. Something along those lines. But I didn’t really care for it, at least in this case. It’s like Timmy fell into the well, and the cement truck is on its way to fill up that old well, but you know in advance that Lassie is going to save the day. You don’t know how, but the when is simply how many minutes until the show is over or how many pages until the end of the book.

So a lot of the book dragged, same themes, same dialogs. I do give him credit for an interesting narrative; I learned a lot about the Deaf and being deaf that I didn’t know before and this book made me think about that culture and those who cannot hear in a new context. Overall though, that wasn’t enough to make me like this book anymore or become overly engaged with the story or the people in the story.

Another complaint I have with Deaver is that all his super genius crime stoppers tend to fall flat at some point (universally at the worst possible point). Yeah, yeah, they can’t know everything all the time, but they always seem to miss the most obvious factors. You know how like in every respectable slasher movie you get to that point... don’t take a shower right now... or don’t go skinny-dipping right now... it was like that. You could well in advance pretty much figure what was going to happen.

But like any good book, the ending is strong so I kicked it up another half star to slightly better than average. ( )

From Amazon:

Eight vulnerable girls and their helpless teachers are forced off a school bus and held hostage. The madman who has them at gunpoint has a simple plan: one hostage an hour will die unless the demands are met. Called to the scene is Arthur Potter, the FBI's best hostage negotiator. He has a plan. But so does one of the hostages-a beautiful teacher who's willing to do anything to save the lives of her students. Now, the clock is ticking as a chilling game of cat and mouse begins.

My Thoughts:

I read this novel ten years ago and just saw that I had never done a review for it. Better late than never:) The Maiden's Grave is filled with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, taking what could have been just a classic negotiation story and flipping it on its head. It takes a frightful, horrific situation and turns it up a notch by having a group of deaf hostages, and the three hostage takers that are unwilling to communicate with them. And then it adds local politics and multiple task forces for good measure, with each group having its own agenda. The characters sometimes take a backseat to the story, but I still felt emotionally invested in what would happen next. This proved to be a good read, along with having a certain amount of unpredictability to keep things interesting. ( )