Review: The Broken Window

The Broken Window. Jeffery Deaver. Detective thriller.

It's been a while since I did a review, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading. Just too many other things on my plate to write about them. But in stolen time I've just finished another Jeffery Deaver thriller. It was, typically from Deaver, the kind of yarn that grips, and I took every opportunity to read on. And of the half dozen or so books I've read in the last month, it was truly the most thought-provoking.

It features the writer's paraplegic hero, the gruff Lincoln Rhyme, and his associate and lover Amelia Sachs. A serial killer who frames others for his crimes is at the core of the story, and Deaver exploits well the technique of telling 'around' the most grisly bits, making them through imagination even more terrifying.

The story moves fast, leaving the detectives playing catch-up for a while until they suddenly start to see a shape to the pattern of their unknown activities. But what really grabs us by the scruff is the background story, how the killer learns so much about his victims and those he's using to frame them. And ultimately to deal with his pursuers.

It's all based around the fact that these days everything we do leaves a trail somewhere, and everywhere there are people harvesting -- 'mining' -- data about us. Storing it, analysing it, using it to check our histories and predict our futures. Believe me, as Deaver writes it, things are much more chilling than Orwell's '1984' ever suggested.

Read this for two stories, the thriller and the information age chiller. I guarantee you won't be able to put it down. And whenever you do, you'll not be able to avoid the feeling you're being watched.

When it's true, it isn't paranoia.

Brian Byrne.