Jeffery Deaver

Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris. Listen to an excerpt.

 

 

April 2008

Question: You introduce us to Lincoln Rhyme’s cousin, Arthur Rhyme, in this novel and share with us quite a bit of Lincoln’s childhood history. Did you create this back story for Lincoln while writing this book or do you already know everything about your characters?
Jeffery Deaver: My fans have been interested in knowing more about Lincoln and his past. But, because the novels take place over a short time and there’s so much action going on, I haven’t had a chance to look into his childhood and family. I’ve been looking for a way to integrate some of his history and decided I’d have his cousin return into his life after a number of years, giving me a chance to keep the action going and yet talk about the past.

Question: Can you explain what the title, The Broken Window, means?
Jeffery Deaver: Of course, as with many of my books, there’s a double meaning to the title. “Broken Window” philosophy in sociology refers to an approach to lower crime rates and improve urban decay. In essence, the concept is that rather than increase external forces to stop crime—-like adding police to patrol bad neighborhoods—you spend money improving the bad neighborhoods, such as painting housing projects and fixing broken windows. The increased pride in the place will encourage the residents to do more self-policing and to shun crime. In my book, the title also refers to what may be the source of the murders: the huge data miner, Strategic Systems Datacorp, who’s corporate logo is a window, gazing out on society.

Question: What made you decide to write about data mining? Was there a particular inspiration?
Jeffery Deaver: I’m always looking for ways to make my dangers immediate, for my readers, rather than write about abstract threats (like stolen nuclear bombs and the like). As the victim of some small identity theft a few years ago, I learned how much information about us is freely available—and I’m not talking just credit card numbers and the like. I mean EVERYTHING. What a great villain, I decided: a killer who has access to all that information about individual citizens and who can use it to kill them and then frame the innocent.

Question: I’ve got to tell you, this book actually scared me a bit. It seems like the danger in The Broken Window is very realistic and could actually happen to any one of us. Were you hoping to get that kind of reaction from readers? Do you like to inform readers while entertaining them?
Jeffery Deaver: One of the greatest things about writing thrillers is that I get to learn things . . . and to impart some of that knowledge to my fans, who, I know, also love to learn details. The more I researched data mining, identity theft and the death of privacy, the more I realized that it’s one of our most crucial issues today and I know fans will love to read about it. Of course, these are thrillers first and I make sure I don’t lecture; rather all the information I present is not only fascinating but moves the story along quickly.

Question: The Broken Window is is the eighth book in the Lincoln Rhyme series. What’s your secret for keeping a series alive?
Jeffery Deaver: I have my fans to thank for that. The Lincoln/Amelia franchise continues to grow in popularity. And as long as readers like the pair, I’m delighted to write the books. Of course, I’m interspersing the Rhyme books with my other hero, Kathryn Dance. She’ll be back in 2009, and Lincoln and Amelia in 2010.

Question: If I was just discovering you and your novels, which book would you recommend I read first?
Jeffery Deaver: I think it would have to be The Bone Collector or The Sleeping Doll. Both of these are the first in the Rhyme and Dance series respectively. I myself always like starting with the first book that launched a series character.

1

Something nagged, yet she couldn’t quite figure out what.

Like a faint recurring ache somewhere in your body.

Or a man on the street behind you as you near your apartment. . . . Was he the same one who’d been glancing at you on the subway?

Or a dark dot moving toward your bed that’s now vanished. A black-widow spider?

But then her visitor, sitting on her living room couch, glanced at her and smiled and Alice Sanderson forgot the concern—if concern it was. Arthur had a good mind and a solid body, sure. But he had a great smile, which counted for a lot more.

“How ’bout some wine?” she asked, walking into her small kitchen.

“Sure. Whatever you’ve got.”

“So, this’s pretty fun—playing hooky on a weekday. Two grown adults. I like it.”

“Born to be wild,” he joked.

Outside the window, across the street, were rows of painted and natural brownstones. They could also see part of the Manhattan skyline, hazy on this pleasant spring weekday afternoon. Air—fresh enough for the city—wafted in, carrying the scents of garlic and oregano from an Italian restaurant up the street. It was their favorite type of cuisine—one of the many common interests they’d discovered since they’d met several weeks ago at a wine tasting in SoHo. In late April, Alice had found herself in the crowd of about forty, listening to a sommelier lecture about the wines of Europe, when she’d heard a man’s voice ask about a particular type of Spanish red wine.

She had barked a quiet laugh. She happened to own a case of that very wine (well, part of a case now). It was made by a little-known vineyard. Perhaps not the best Rioja ever produced but the wine offered another bouquet: that of fond memory. She and a French lover had consumed plenty of it during a week in Spain—a perfect liaison, just the thing for a woman in her late twenties who’d recently broken up with her boyfriend. The vacation fling was passionate, intense and, of course, doomed, which made it all the better.

Alice had leaned forward to see who’d mentioned the wine: a nondescript man in a business suit. After a few glasses of the featured selections she’d grown braver and, juggling a plate of finger food, had made her way across the room and asked him about his interest in the wine.

He’d explained about a trip he’d taken to Spain a few years ago with an ex-girlfriend. How he’d come to enjoy the wine. They’d sat at a table and talked for some time. Arthur, it seemed, liked the same food she did, the same sports. They both jogged and spent an hour each morning in overpriced health clubs. “But,” he said, “I wear the cheapest JC Penney shorts and T-shirts I can find. No designer garbage for me. . . .” Then he’d blushed, realizing he’d possibly insulted her.

But she’d laughed. She took the same approach to workout clothes (in her case, bought at Target when visiting her family in Jersey). She’d quashed the urge to tell him, though, worried about coming on too strong. They’d played that popular urban dating game: what we have in common. They’d rated restaurants, compared Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes and complained about their shrinks.

A date ensued, then another. Art was funny and courteous. A little stiff, shy at times, reclusive, which she put down to what he described as the breakup from hell—a long-term girlfriend in the fashion business. And his grueling work schedule—he was a Manhattan businessman. He had little free time.

Would anything come of it?

He wasn’t a boyfriend yet. But there were far worse people to spend time with. And when they’d kissed on their most recent date, she’d felt the low ping that meant, oh, yeah: chemistry. Tonight might or might not reveal exactly how much. She’d noticed that Arthur had furtively—he thought—been checking out the tight pink little number she’d bought at Bergdorf’s especially for their date. And Alice had made some preparations in the bedroom in case kissing turned into something else.

Then the faint uneasiness, the concern about the spider, returned.

What was bothering her?

Alice supposed it was nothing more than a residue of unpleasantness she’d experienced when a delivery man had dropped off a package earlier. Shaved head and bushy eyebrows, smelling of cigarette smoke and speaking in a thick Eastern European accent. As she’d signed the papers, he’d looked her over—clearly flirting—and then asked for a glass of water. She brought it to him reluctantly and found him in the middle of her living room, staring at her sound system.

She’d told him she was expecting company and he’d left, frowning, as if angry over a snub. Alice had watched out the window and noted that nearly ten minutes had passed before he got into the double-parked van and left.

What had he been doing in the apartment building all that time? Checking out—

“Hey, Earth to Alice . . . ”

“Sorry.” She laughed, continued to the couch, then sat next to Arthur, their knees brushing. Thoughts of the delivery man vanished. They touched glasses, these two people who were compatible in all-important areas—politics (they contributed virtually the same amount to the Dems and gave money during NPR pledge drives), movies, food, traveling. They were both lapsed Protestants.

When their knees touched again, his rubbed seductively. Then Arthur smiled and asked, “Oh, that painting you bought, the Prescott? Did you get it?”

Her eyes shone as she nodded. “Yep. I own a Harvey Prescott.”

Alice Sanderson was not a wealthy woman by Manhattan standards but she’d invested well and indulged her true passion. She’d followed the career of Prescott, a painter from Oregon who specialized in photorealistic works of families—not existing people but ones he himself made up. Some traditional, some not so—single parent, mixed race or gay. It was next to impossible finding any of  his paintings on the market in her price range but she was on the mailing lists of the galleries that occasionally sold his work. Last month she’d learned from one out west that a small early canvas might be coming available for $150,000. Sure enough, the owner decided to sell and she’d dipped into her investment account to come up with the cash.

She glanced at her walls and told him she wasn’t sure where to hang the painting in her small apartment. A brief fantasy played out: Arthur’s staying over one Saturday night and on Sunday, after brunch, helping her find the perfect place for the canvas.

Her voice was filled with pleasure and pride as she said, “You want to see it?”

“You bet.”

They rose and she walked toward the bedroom, Arthur behind her.

They got to the bedroom door.

Which was when the black-widow struck.

With a jolt Alice now understood what had been bothering her, and it had nothing to do with the rude delivery man. No, it was Arthur. When they’d spoken yesterday he’d asked when the Prescott would be arriving.

She’d told him she was getting a painting but had never mentioned the artist’s name. Slowing now, at the bedroom door. Her hands were sweating. If he’d learned of the painting without her telling him, then maybe he’d found other facts about her life. What if all of the many things they had in common were lies? What if he’d known about her love of the Spanish wine ahead of time? What if he’d been at the tasting just to get close to her? All the restaurants they knew, the travel, the TV shows. . . .

My God, here she was leading a man she’d known for only a few weeks into her bedroom. All her defenses down . . .

Breathing hard now. . . . Shivering.

“Oh, the painting,” he whispered, looking past her. “It’s beautiful.”

And, hearing his calm, pleasant voice, Alice laughed to herself. Are you crazy? She must have mentioned Prescott’s name to Arthur. She tucked the uneasiness away. Calm down. You’ve been living alone too long. Remember his smiles, his joking. He thinks the way you think.

Relax.

A faint laugh. Alice stared at the two-by-two-foot canvas, the muted colors, a half-dozen people at a dinner table looking out, some amused, some pensive, some troubled.

“Incredible,” he said.

“The composition is wonderful but it’s their expressions that he captures so perfectly. Don’t you think?” Alice turned to him.

Her smile vanished. “What’s that, Arthur? What are you doing?” He’d put on beige cloth gloves and was reaching into his pocket. And then she looked into his eyes, which had hardened into dark pinpricks beneath furrowed brows, in a face she hardly recognized at all.

Seven books on, most series start to get a bit thin. The characters are doing the same things over and over and the plots get stretched. Which is why The Broken Window is such a surprise. This eighth novel featuring quadriplegic forensic expert Lincoln Rhyme is one of Deaver’s best. Same characters, but the plot, built around identity theft, is riveting. The case for Rhyme, this time, is close to home. His cousin, Arthur, has been arrested for murder. The forensic evidence against him is solid. In fact, it’s perfect, so perfect that it can’t all be real; no one could leave all that trace behind at a crime scene. But that’s Rhyme’s riddle. The police are satisfied and Arthur is in jail awaiting trial. It doesn’t take Rhyme and his partner/lover, Amelia Sachs, long to find out that the evidence against Arthur has been artificially planted. The problem is how and by whom? The trail leads to a huge multinational corporation with information on millions of people, and eventually to a killer so clever he can turn the tables on Rhyme and Sachs as they search for him. If you’ve even been worried about all the info an online hunter could uncover about you, this is one scary novel. Everything in it seems as plausible and easy as buying a purse on eBay. Deaver has outdone himself.”
— Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail

“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.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Quadriplegic forensics whiz Lincoln Rhyme and his Glock-toting girlfriend, Amelia Sachs, track a serial killer who uses an all-knowing computer database to frame fall guys. Movie Pitch: Ironside meets CSI and Enemy of the State. Bottom Line: Rhyme still intrigues in his eighth outing, while Deaver’s scarily believable depiction of identity theft in a total-surveillance society stokes our paranoia. A -.”
— Entertainment Weekly

“Anxious about identity theft? Well, as a Jeffery Deaver character says, “If somebody wants to destroy your life, there’s nothing you can do about it.” That’s the theme of THE BROKEN WINDOW (Simon & Schuster, $26.95), one of the most unnerving of Deaver’s eight novels featuring his quadriplegic forensic detective, Lincoln Rhyme. Smarter and scarier than the genre’s garden-variety nut jobs, the mad genius at work in this book takes pride in penetrating secure databases. After stripping people of an essential piece of their lives, he frames them for his own murderous deeds. But here, the rape-torture-killing element seems largely just a concession to the sensationalistic formula of the thriller. Deaver is far more caught up in the devious mechanics of identity fraud, analyzed in depth by Rhyme once it’s determined that the killer has access to the supersecret files of a data-mining company whose clients include government agencies. While murder is still murder, the image that lingers in this Orwellian nightmare is that of the villain’s original guinea pig, once a doctor, now a wretch who calls himself Job and lives in flophouses, hiding from the angry God who stole his life.”
— Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

Narrated by Holter Graham.  Listen to an excerpt.