Many fans will feel that The Stone Monkey is Deaver's strongest thriller yet.

The new book boosts the storytelling acumen onto a new level as Rhyme and Amelia Sachs take on the violent world of Chinese organised crime. Recruited to aid the US government in a highly difficult (and dangerous) task, Rhyme and Amelia succeed in tracking down a cargo ship carrying a group of illegal immigrants along with the sinister human smuggler and killer known as Youling--the Ghost. But the capture of the Ghost goes pear-shaped, and Rhyme and Amelia are launched into a frantic race against time; they must stop the Ghost before he can track down and destroy the surviving families who have gone missing in the cloistered and secretive world of New York City's Chinese community. As 48 hours anxiously tick by, the malevolent criminal ruthlessly hunts the families while his pursuers (aided by a policeman from mainland China) struggle to prevent the carnage. Amelia, meanwhile, has forged a connection with one of the immigrants that may have considerable consequences for t! he relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme.

Needless to say, the tension is ratcheted up as relentlessly as ever (Deaver has few peers in this arena), but it's the new wrinkles that he finds for the quixotic relationship between his two mismatched protagonists that are the wellspring of The Stone Monkey?s forceful appeal.--Barry Forshaw

'A must for any crime fan'

'The best psychological thriller writer around' - The Times

'Teeth-chattering suspense' - Daily Mail

'Stunning' Scotsman

'This is Deaver as his followers expect him to be, crackling and compulsive' Publishing News

'Plenty of action'

'The best psychological thriller writer around'

'Deaver is a master of the ticking bomb suspense'

Lincoln and Amelia are recruited to track down a cargo ship carrying two dozen illegal Chinese immigrants, as well as the notorious human smuggler and killer known as the Ghost. But when the capture goes disastrously wrong, Lincoln and Amelia find themselves in a race to stop the Ghost before he can track down and murder the two surviving families who have vanished deep into the labyrinthine world of New York City's Chinese community.



Over the next forty-eight hours the Ghost ruthlessly hunts for the families while Rhyme, aided by a policeman from mainland China, struggles to find them before they die and Sachs pursues a very different kind of policework - forming a connection with one of the immigrants that may have consequences going to the core of her relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme.

Lincoln and Amelia are recruited to track down a cargo ship carrying two dozen illegal Chinese immigrants, as well as the notorious human smuggler and killer known as the Ghost. But when the capture goes disastrously wrong, Lincoln and Amelia find themselves in a race to stop the Ghost before he can track down and murder the two surviving families who have vanished deep into the labyrinthine world of New York City's Chinese community. Over the next forty-eight hours the Ghost ruthlessly hunts for the families while Rhyme, aided by a policeman from mainland China, struggles to find them before they die and Sachs pursues a very different kind of policework - forming a connection with one of the immigrants that may have consequences going to the core of her relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme.

Jeff Deaver was a lawyer before quitting work to become a full-time writer. He divides his time between Washington, DC and California.

They were the vanished, they were the unfortunate.
To the human smugglers ? the snakeheads ? who carted them around the world like pallets of damaged goods, they were ju-jia, piglets. To the American INS agents who interdicted their ships and arrested and deported them they were undocumenteds.
They were the hopeful. Who were trading homes and family and a thousand years of ancestry for the hard certainty of risky, laborious years ahead of them.
Who had the slimmest of chances to take root in a place where their families could prosper, where freedom and money and contentment were, the story went, as common as sunlight and rain.
They were his fragile cargo.
And now, legs steady against the raging, five-meter-high seas, Captain Sen Zi-jun made his way from the bridge down two decks into the murky hold to deliver the grim message that their weeks of difficult journeying might have been in vain.
It was just before dawn on a Tuesday in August. The stocky captain, whose head was shaved and who sported an elaborate bushy mustache, slipped past the empty containers lashed to the deck of the seventy-two-meter Fuzhou Dragon as camouflage and opened the heavy steel door to the hold. He looked down at the two-dozen people huddled there, in the grim, windowless space. Trash and children?s plastic blocks floated in the shallow tide under the cheap cots.
Despite the pitching waves, Captain Sen ? a thirty-year veteran of the seas ? walked down the steep metal steps without using the handrails and strode into the middle of the hold. He checked the carbon dioxide meter and found the levels acceptable though the air was vile with the smell of diesel fuel and humans who?d lived for two weeks in close proximity.
Unlike many of the captains and crew who operated ?buckets?? human smuggling ships ? and who at best ignored or sometimes even beat or raped the passengers, Sen didn?t mistreat them. Indeed he believed that he was doing a good thing: transporting these families from difficulty to, if not certain wealth, at least the hope of a happy life in America, Meiguo in Chinese, which means the ?Beautiful Country.?
On this particular voyage, however, most of the immigrants distrusted him. And why not? They assumed he was in league with the snakehead who?d chartered the Dragon: Kwan Ang, known universally by his nick-name, Gui, the Ghost. Tainted by the snakehead?s reputation for violence, Captain Sen?s efforts to engage the immigrants in conversation had been rebuffed and had yielded only one friend. Chang Jingerzi ? who preferred his Western name of Sam Chang ? was a forty-five-year-old former college professor from a suburb of the huge port city of Fuzhou in south-eastern China. He was bringing his entire family to America: his wife, two sons and Chang?s widower father.
A half-dozen times on the trip Chang and Sen had sat in the hold, sipped the potent mao-tai that the captain always had in good supply on his ship and talked about life in China and in the United States.
Captain Sen now saw Chang sitting on a cot in a forward corner of the hold. The tall, placid man frowned, a reaction to the look in the captain?s eyes. Chang handed his teenage son the book he?d been reading to his family and rose to meet the captain.
Everyone around them fell silent.
?Our radar shows a fast-moving ship on course to intercept us.?
Dismay blossomed in the faces of those who?d overheard.
?The Americans?? Chang asked. ?Their Coast Guard??
?I think it must be,? the captain answered. ?We?re in U.S. waters.?
Sen looked at the frightened faces of the immigrants around him. Like most shiploads of illegals that Sen had transported, these people ? many of them strangers before they?d met ?had formed a close bond of friendship. And they now gripped hands or whispered among themselves, some seeking, some offering reassurance. The captain?s eyes settled on a woman holding an eighteen-month-old girl in her arms. Her mother ? whose face was scarred from a beating at a reeducation camp ? lowered her head and began to cry.
?What can we do?? Chang asked, troubled. Captain Sen knew he was a vocal dissident in China and had been desperate to flee the country. If he was deported by U.S. Immigration he?d probably end up in one of the infamous jails in western China as a political prisoner.
?We?re not far from the drop-off spot. We?re running at full speed. It may be possible to get close enough to put you ashore in rafts.?
?No, no,? Chang said. ?In these waves? We?d all die.?
?There?s a natural harbor I?m steering for. It should be calm enough for you to board the rafts. At the beach there?ll be trucks to take you to New York.?
?And what about you?? Chang asked.
?I?ll head back into the storm. By the time it?s safe for them to board you?ll be on highways of gold, heading toward the city of diamonds. . . . Now tell everyone to get their belongings together. But only the most important things. Your money, your pictures. Leave everything else. It will be a race to the shore. Stay below until the Ghost or I tell you to come up top.?
Captain Sen hurried up the steep ladder, on his way to the bridge. As he climbed he said a brief prayer for their survival to Tian Hou, the goddess of sailors, then dodged a wall of gray water that vaulted the side of the ship.
On the bridge he found the Ghost standing over the radar unit, staring into the rubber glare shade. The man stood completely still, bracing himself against the rolling of the sea.

2008-02-14 Good Detective Novel

In this novel, the duo of Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are on the case of an evil people trafficer, known only as the 'ghost'. The 'ghost' has just deliberately scuttled a cargo ship carrying his illegal immigrants, after locking them in the hold. However, a couple of families have escaped, and now he is ruthlessly on their trail, in the city of New York.

I found this novel a good read, if not quite a page turner. The combination of Rhyme and Sachs is always interesting, although, I feel, the large cast of characters, around them, from the different law enforcement agencies, can sometimes be a bit unwieldy, and on few occasions I had to think as to which character, belonged to which agency.

I thought there were a couple of small drawbacks to the book. Firstly, there seemed to be an awful lot of action/events going on in the space of just a few days, and, secondly, I felt some of the Chinese characters in the novel, were a bit too stereotyped. All in all, though, a fairly good book. Three and half to four stars.