Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Триллер, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Empty Chair: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Empty Chair»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

The Barnes Noble Review
May 2000
The Empty Chair is the third – or, if you count a guest appearance in the millennial thriller The Devil's Teardrop, the fourth – novel to feature Lincoln Rhyme, the irascible forensic genius who became a quadriplegic when a cave-in at a crime scene damaged his spinal cord beyond repair. The series began in 1997 with The Bone Collector, which was recently made into a so-so film starring Denzel Washington. Every Rhyme novel to date has been characterized by authentic forensic detail and wild, even extravagant plotting, and the latest entry is no exception. The Empty Chair may, in fact, be the single trickiest suspense novel published so far this year.
Unlike earlier volumes, The Empty Chair takes place outside of New York City in the bucolic but sinister environs of Paquenoke County, North Carolina. Rhyme – accompanied by his long-suffering physical therapist, Thom, and his beloved forensic assistant, Amelia Sachs – has just been accepted as a patient at the Medical Center of the University of North Carolina, where he is scheduled to undergo an experimental procedure that might increase the range of his mobility but might, on the other hand, result in his death. Shortly after his arrival, Lincoln 's plans are disrupted by an unforeseen emergency. Jim Bell, Paquenoke County sheriff, has trouble on his hands and needs Lincoln 's expertise.
According to Bell, a disturbed teenager – known, for reasons that become graphically clear, as the Insect Boy – has murdered a local football hero and abductedtwoyoung women. Convinced that the women have only hours to live, Bell asks Lincoln to examine the trace evidence found at the abduction site in the faint hope of pinpointing the kidnapper's location. Though he knows nothing about the physical composition of the surrounding area – he and Sachs, as he repeatedly comments, are "fish out of water" in the American South – Rhyme agrees to help. Once again using Amelia Sachs as his eyes and legs, he sets up an ad hoc forensic lab in a borrowed corner of the local Sheriff's office and goes to work.
This sort of scenario – a crazed killer, a race against time, a scattered handful of clues – offers more than enough drama to fuel any number of traditional suspense novels. In The Empty Chair, however, this same scenario is merely the first level of a complex, multitiered mystery that constantly confounds our most fundamental expectations. The first indication that The Empty Chair contains unexpected depths comes when Lincoln, flawlessly interpreting his disparate bits of evidence, locates both the Insect Boy (Garrett Hanlon) and his most recent victim (an oncology nurse named Lydia Johannsen) within the first 150 pages. At that point, Deaver throws away the rulebook.
After talking with Garrett Hanlon in the Paquenoke County jail, Amelia develops the instinctive sense that Garrett might, as he continually claims, be a victim, and that another unidentified killer might still be at large. In a moment of intuitive – and reckless – empathy, Amelia abandons her professional principles and escapes with Garrett, determined both to prove the boy's innocence and rescue the remaining victim, a local history student named Mary Beth McConnell. From this point forward, almost nothing that happens in The Empty Chair is even remotely predictable.
It would spoil too many of the carefully constructed surprises to reveal the plot in any more detail. Suffice it to say that the narrative – which seems, at first, a simple but effective chase story – broadens and deepens to become something stranger and infinitely more complex. Throwing a varied assortment of people and elements into the mix – a trio of Deliverance-style rednecks, an emotionally scarred cancer survivor, a revisionist account of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, an apparently deranged deputy sheriff, a pair of incipient rapists, the hidden motivations of a wealthy industrialist, and the tragic history of Tanner's Corner, a "town without children" – Deaver constructs an artful, entertaining melodrama that has much to say about the destructive consequences of uncontrolled greed.
If The Empty Chair has a besetting weakness, it is Deaver's relentless determination to dazzle the reader with his narrative sleight of hand, piling on an endless, constantly escalating series of shocks, surprises, and unexpected twists that might, in a lesser writer's hands, have become just a bit too much. But Deaver, as usual, is a consummate professional, and he holds it all together with the ease and assurance of a natural storyteller. Readers familiar with the earlier adventures of Lincoln Rhyme will be lining up for this one, which seems likely to attract a substantial number of new readers, as well. The Empty Chair is Jeffery Deaver at his best and most devious and is recommended, without reservation, to anyone in search of intelligent, high-adrenaline entertainment.
– Bill Sheehan

The Empty Chair — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Empty Chair», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

"Garrett's innocent, Rhyme. I know he is. I couldn't let him go to the detention center. They'd kill him there."

"Then we'll arrange for him to be held someplace else. And we'll look at the evidence again. We'll find more evidence. We'll do it together. You and me. That's what we say, Sachs, right? You and me… Always you and me. There's nothing we can't find."

There was a pause. "There's nobody on Garrett's side. He's all by himself, Rhyme."

"We can protect him."

"You can't protect somebody from a whole town, Lincoln."

"No first names," Rhyme said. "That's bad luck, remember?"

"This whole thing has been bad luck."

"Please, Sachs…"

She said, "Sometimes you just have to go on faith."

"Now who's dispensing maxims?" He forced himself to laugh – in part to reassure her. In part, himself.

Faint static.

Come home, Sachs , he was thinking. Please! We can still salvage something from this. Your life is as precarious as the thread of the nerve in my neck – the tiny fiber that still works.

And as precious to me.

She said, "Garrett tells me we can get to Mary Beth by tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll call you when we have her."

"Sachs, don't hang up yet. One thing. Let me say one thing."

"What?"

"Whatever you think about Garrett, don't trust him. You think he's innocent. But just accept that maybe he isn't. You know how we approach crime scenes, Sachs."

"With an open mind," she recited the rule. "No preconceptions. Believing that anything's possible."

"Right. Promise me you'll remember that."

"He's cuffed, Rhyme."

"Keep him that way. And don't let him near your weapon."

"I won't. I'll call you when we have Mary Beth."

"Sachs -"

The line went dead.

"Damn," the criminalist muttered. He closed his eyes, tried to shake off the headset in fury. Thom reached forward and lifted the unit off his head. With a brush he smoothed Rhyme's dark hair.

Lucy hung up the phone in the other room and stepped inside. Rhyme could tell from her expression that the trace hadn't worked.

"Pete said they're within three miles of downtown Tanner's Corner."

Mason muttered, "They can't do any better than that?"

Lucy said, "If she'd been on the line a few minutes longer they could've pinpointed her down to fifteen feet."

Bell was examining the map. "Okay, three miles outside of downtown."

"Would he go back to Blackwater Landing?" Rhyme asked.

"No," Bell said. "We know they're headed for the Outer Banks and Blackwater Landing'd take him in the opposite direction."

"What's the best way to get to the Banks?" the criminalist asked.

"They can't do it on foot," Bell said, walking to the map. "They'll have to take a car or car and a boat. There're two ways to get there. They could go Route 112 south to 17. That'll take them to Elizabeth City and they could get a boat or keep on 17 all the way to 158 and drive to the beaches. Or they could take Harper Road… Mason, you take Frank Sturgis and Trey and get over to 112. Set up a roadblock at Belmont."

Rhyme noticed this was Location M-10 on the map.

The sheriff continued, "Lucy, you and Jesse take Harper down to Millerton Road. Set up there."

This was H-14.

Bell called his brother-in-law into the room. "Steve, you coordinate communications and get everybody Handi-talkies if they don't already have them."

"Sure thing, Jim."

Bell said to Lucy and Mason, "Tell everybody that Garrett's in one of our detention jumpsuits. They're blue. What's your girl wearing? I don't remember."

"She's not my girl," Rhyme said.

"Sorry."

Rhyme said, "Jeans, black T-shirt."

"She have a hat?"

"No."

Lucy and Mason headed out the door.

A moment later the room was empty except for Bell, Rhyme and Thom.

The sheriff called the state police and told the detective who'd helped them with the mobile locator to keep somebody on that frequency, that the missing person might call in later.

Rhyme noticed Bell pause. He glanced at Rhyme and said into the phone, "Appreciate the offer, Pete. But so far it's just a missing person. Nothing serious."

He hung up. Muttered, "Nothing serious. Jesus, our Lord…"

Fifteen minutes later Ben Kerr walked into the office. He actually seemed glad to be back though he was visibly upset at the news that necessitated his return.

Together he and Thom finished unpacking the state police's forensic equipment while Rhyme stared up at the map and the evidence charts on the wall.

FOUND AT PRIMARY CRIME SCENE -

BLACKWATER LANDING

Kleenex with Blood

Limestone Dust

Nitrates

Phosphate

Ammonia

Detergent

Camphene

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

GARETT'S ROOM

Skunk Musk

Cut Pine Needles

Drawings of Insects

Pictures of Mary Beth and Family

Insect Books

Fishing Line

Money

Unknown Key

Kerosene

Ammonia

Nitrates

Camphene

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

QUARRY

Old Burlap Bag – Unreadable Name on It

Corn – Feed and Grain?

Scorch Marks on Bag

Deer Park Water

Planters Cheese Crackers

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Map of Outer Banks

Ocean Beach Sand

Oak/Maple Leaf Residue

As Rhyme gazed at the last chart he realized how little evidence Sachs had found at the mill. This was always a problem when you locate obvious clues at crime scenes – like the map and the sand. Psychologically your attention flags and you search less diligently. He now wished they had more evidence from the scene.

Then Rhyme recalled something. Lydia had said that Garrett'd changed his clothes at the mill when the search party was closing in. Why? The only reason was that he knew that the clothes he'd hidden there could reveal where he'd hidden Mary Beth. He glanced at Bell. "Did you say Garrett was wearing a prison jumpsuit?"

"That's right."

"You have what he was wearing when he was arrested?"

"It'd be over at the lockup."

"Could you have them sent over here?"

"The clothes? Right away."

"Have them put in a paper bag," he ordered. "Don't unfold them."

The sheriff called the lockup, told a deputy to bring them over. From the one-sided conversation Rhyme deduced that the deputy was more than happy to participate in helping to find the woman who'd hog-tied and shamed him.

Rhyme stared at the map of the Eastern shore. They could narrow the search to old houses – because of the camphene lamp – and to ones set back from the beach itself – because of the maple and oak leaf trace. But the sheer size of the place was daunting. Hundreds of miles.

Bell 's phone rang. He answered and spoke for a minute then hung up. Walked to the map. "They've got the roadblocks set up. Garrett and Amelia might move inland here to get around them" – he tapped Location M-10 – "but from where Mason and Frank are they've got a good view of this field and they'd be seen."

Rhyme asked, "What about that railroad line south of town?"

"Not used for passenger travel. It's a freight line and there's no set schedule for the trains. But they could hike along it. That's why I set up the block at Belmont. My bet is they'll go that way. I'm also thinking Garrett might hide out for a while in the Manitou Falls Wildlife Preserve – with his interest in bugs and nature and stuff. He probably spends a lot of time there." Bell tapped spot T-10.

Farr asked, "What about that airport?"

Bell looked at Rhyme. "Can she hot-wire an airplane?"

"No, she doesn't fly."

Rhyme noticed a reference on the map. He asked, "What's that military base?"

"Used it to store weapons in the sixties and seventies. It's been closed for years. But there're tunnels and bunkers all over the place. We'd need two-dozen men to search the place and he could still probably find a nook to hide in."

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Empty Chair»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Empty Chair» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour
Jeffery Deaver
Bruce Wagner - The Empty Chair
Bruce Wagner
Jeffery Deaver - The Steel Kiss
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Kill Room
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Blue Nowhere
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Twelfth Card
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer
Jeffery Deaver
Jeffery Deaver - The Never Game
Jeffery Deaver
Отзывы о книге «The Empty Chair»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Empty Chair» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x