Description de l’éditeur
I can make good bad and bad badder, and most fun of all, really bad seem good.' Jeffrey Deaver. And that is exactly what he does in this superb collection. In 'Beautiful', former supermodel Kari's stalker has followed her through retirement to her new small town home. The police can do nothing. The only thing that will end the nightmare is the stalker's death or her own. In the Edgar-nominated 'Triangle', Pete finds a true crime book - and uses the lessons contained therein to kill Mo's lover. The award-winning 'without Jonathan' introduces us to Marissa, about to go on the first date of her life since she married Jonathan, with a man she met through the personals. As she wonders whether she will ever truly fall in love again, the man she is about to meet is killing a housewife in another part of town... And in the brand-new 'The Christmas Present', we see a side of Lincoln Rhyme we've never met before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The title applies in several ways to this wicked collection of crime short stories by bestselling author Deaver (The Vanished Man, etc.): to many of the stories' characters and protagonists, who include murderers, adulterers, thieves; to the stories' arcs, which offer numerous bends and surprises; and to the general tone of the tales as Deaver says in a brief introduction, "In a story, I can make good bad and bad badder and, most fun of all, really bad good." Of the 16 stories, 15 are reprints, some from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, some from its counterpart Alfred Hitchcock, while one, a Christmas tale featuring Deaver's beloved quadriplegic crime-buster Lincoln Rhyme and his sidekick, Amelia Sachs, is original to the anthology. The opening story, "Without Jonathan," is representative of Deaver's approach here. A woman, Marissa, drives along a Maine road, tormented by images of her husband drowning at sea. She's on her way to meet a man, presumably her first date since her husband's death. Cut to the man, shown strangling a woman is our heroine about to encounter a serial killer? The two meet... and it turns out that he's a hit man hired by Marissa to kidnap her cheating husband aboard the husband's ship, then throw him overboard. And so it goes in story after story, all characterized, in addition to clever plotting, by brisk characterization and compact, efficient prose. The Rhyme/Sachs entry, "The Christmas Present," is the cherry on the tart, as grumpy Rhyme and sweet but dangerous Sachs set out to save a woman from one apparent predator only to have to rescue her from another. Like an afternoon snack, this snappy volume will stave off hunger for Deaver fans until his next novel appears.
