The Coffin Dancer

[sawyl]

Read the second of Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme novels, The Coffin Dancer, which I started while I was travelling and only just finished. I'm not sure if it's me or the book, but it really didn't work for me.

The story opens with a plane crash: pilot Ed Carney's Learjet 35 is blown out of the sky while he is on the phone to his wife. It turns out he, his wife, and another of the Hudson Air Charter's pilots witnessed a mobster flying off late one night to dump some inconvenient evidence, and now someone has hired the Coffin Dancer, a notorious assassin, to deal with the problem. When Lincoln Rhyme is called in to consult on the case, he immediately tries to put Percey Clay, Carney's wife, into protective custody. But being feisty and determined to save her company from bankruptcy, Percey talks the police into taking her to the airfield instead. The Dancer attacks but the day is saved by Amelia Sachs — who, regardless, believes that she's blown it by failing to take on a distant sniper armed only with a handgun.

With evidence gathered from the airfield by Sachs, Rhyme sets about predicting the Dancer's next moves. With his two targets still alive, Rhyme reasons that the assassin's next move with be an assault on the FBI's safe house. Using his uncanny ability to predict the Dancer's next moves, Rhyme attempts to lure him into a series of traps. In each case, he comes close, but fails to snare his prey.

I'm no quite sure why, but the book really didn't gel with me. Rhyme felt more abrasive than in the first book, although I guess that's a major part of his personality, and I really couldn't understand why either Sachs or Percey were willing to put up with him. I thought the assassin plot stretched things a too far and found the multiple attempts at snaring the assassin a little repetative and laboured. And it didn't help that I wasn't particularly interested in the aeroplane jargon or the mechanics of air freight.

So, while your milage may vary, I really didn't get on with this. I can't promise not to dip into the series again, but I think I'm going to go for something very different for my next book...