Downloading The Broken Window

SOON TO BE A MAJOR TELEVISION EVENT FROM NBC, STARRING RUSSELL HORNSBY, ARIELLE KEBBEL, AND MICHAEL IMPERIOLI.

Lincoln Rhyme faces “an Orwellian nightmare” ( The New York Times ) as a twisted techno-genius destroys lives with impunity by stealing personal information from behind the impenetrable walls of cyberspace.

Rhyme’s cousin Arthur has been arrested on murder charges, and the evidence against the estranged relative Lincoln hasn’t seen in years is perfect— too perfect. Lincoln and his partner Amelia Sachs piece together a deadly pattern of similarly vicious frame-ups that leads them to the imposing Strategic Systems Datacorp—and a master of identity theft and manipulation known only as “522.” But cracking this ingenious killer’s realm places Rhyme and Sachs exactly where “522” wants them—in line to be the next victims. **

From Publishers Weekly

In bestseller Deaver's entertaining eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Cold Moon ), Rhyme, a forensic consultant for the NYPD, and his detective partner, Amelia Sachs, take on a psychotic mastermind who uses data mining— the business of the twenty-first century—not only to select and hunt down his victims but also to frame the crimes on complete innocents. Rhyme is reluctantly drawn into a case involving his estranged cousin, Arthur, who's been charged with first-degree murder. But when Rhyme and his crew look into the strange set of circumstances surrounding his cousin's alleged crime, they discover tangential connections to a company that specializes in collecting and analyzing consumer data. Further investigation leads them to some startlingly Orwellian revelations: Big Brother is watching your every move and could be a homicidal maniac. The topical subject matter makes the story line particularly compelling, while longtime fans will relish Deaver's intimate exploration of a tragedy from Rhyme's adolescence. (June)
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From Booklist

As the Lincoln Rhyme series rolls along, the quadriplegic criminalist’s cases keep getting more and more elaborate. The Cold Moon (2006) was extremely intricate, but this one tops it. Lincoln’s cousin has been arrested for murder. The case seems airtight, but when he looks into it, Rhyme begins to suspect that he has stumbled onto an especially devious serial killer, one who uses cutting-edge data-mining techniques to steal the identities of his victims and of the innocent people he frames for his crimes. Rhyme is perhaps the best and smartest investigator in the game, but how do you catch a killer when you don’t know anything about him? If a large part of writing a mystery is like making a puzzle, then Deaver may just be the cleverest puzzle maker in the business. He has built his reputation on the strength of well-drawn characters; hyperrealistic dialogue (you don’t read it, you hear it); and right-angle plot twists that are impossible to predict. There is no one quite like Deaver—or like Lincoln Rhyme. --David Pitt