The Empty Chair
A quadriplegic since a beam crushed his spinal cord years ago, Rhyme is desperate to improve his condition and goes to the University of North Carolina Medical Center for high-risk experimental surgery. But he and Sachs have hardly settled in when the local authorities come calling. In a twenty-four-hour period, the sleepy Southern outpost of Tanner’s Corner has seen a local teen murdered and two young women abducted. And Rhyme and Sachs are the best chance to find the girls alive.
The prime suspect is a strange teenaged truant known as the Insect Boy, so nicknamed for his disturbing obsession with bugs. Rhyme agrees to find the boy while awaiting his operation. Rhyme’s unsurpassed analytical skills and stellar forensic experience, combined with Sachs’s exceptional detective legwork, soon snare the perp. But even Rhyme can’t anticipate that Sachs will disagree with his crime analysis and that her vehemence will put her in the swampland, harboring the very suspect whom Rhyme considers a ruthless killer. So ensues Rhyme’s greatest challenge — facing the criminalist whom he has taught everything he knows in a battle of wits, forensics, and intuition. And in this adversary, Rhyme also faces his best friend and soul mate.
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Jeffery Deaver
Long before The Bone Collector introduced the calculating brilliance of Lincoln Rhyme to readers around the world, Jeffery Deaver was already quietly assembling the tools of his trade: a fascination with psychology, a sharp legal mind, and a love of music that taught him how to pace a story like a song, with rising tension, sudden drops, and crescendos that leave you breathless.
Born outside Chicago in 1950, Deaver’s path to becoming one of the most inventive voices in modern crime fiction wasn’t linear. He studied journalism, practiced law, and even considered a career in folk music before finding his stride in fiction. That varied background seeps into his novels, where legal nuance, technical precision, and psychological complexity collide in plots that are always one twist ahead of the reader.
Lincoln Rhyme
In the Lincoln Rhyme series, the world of forensic investigation transforms into a high-stakes chessboard where every piece moves with calculated precision. At the heart of this gripping saga is Lincoln Rhyme, a brilliant forensic expert confined to a wheelchair, whose mind remains as sharp as ever despite physical limitations. His partnership with Amelia Sachs, a determined and intuitive detective, forms the beating core of stories that delve deep into the psychology of crime and the intricate dance between hunter and hunted.
Lincoln Rhyme consists of sixteen primary books, and includes four additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of three more books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
