Summary
On a freezing December night, with a full moon hovering in the black sky over New York City, two people are brutally murdered -- the death scenes marked by eerie, matching calling cards: moon-faced clocks inves-tigators fear ticked away the victims' last moments on earth. Renowned criminologist Lincoln Rhyme immediately identifies the clock distributor and has the chilling realization that the killer -- who has dubbed himself the Watchmaker -- has more murders planned in the hours to come.
Rhyme, a quadriplegic long confined to his wheelchair, immediately taps his trusted partner and longtime love, Amelia Sachs, to walk the grid and be his eyes and ears on the street. But Sachs has other commitments now -- namely, her first assignment as lead detective on a homicide of her own. As she struggles to balance her pursuit of the infuriatingly elusive Watchmaker with her own case, Sachs unearths shocking revelations about the police force that threaten to undermine her career, her sense of self and her relationship with Rhyme. As the Rhyme-Sachs team shows evi-dence of fissures, the Watchmaker is methodically stalking his victims and planning a diabolical criminal masterwork.... Indeed, the Watchmaker may be the most cunning and mesmerizing villain Rhyme and Sachs have ever encountered.
Jeffery Deaver was born on May 6, 1950 in Chicago, Illinois. He received a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University. Before attending law school, he worked as a business writer. After law school, he worked for a Wall Street law firm practicing corporate law. In 1990, he decided to stop practicing law and become a full-time writer.
His first novel was a horror story entitled Voodoo. He is the author of more than 25 novels and has written some of those stories under the pseudonym William Jeffries. He writes the Lincoln Rhyme series and the Kathryn Dance series. A Maiden's Grave was adapted into a film by HBO called Dead Silence and The Bone Collector was adapted into a feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He received the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association, the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year three times, and the British Thumping Good Read Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)