Speaking in Tongues

December 4, 2000
Before he launched his praised and popular series about quadriplegic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme (The Empty Chair, etc.), Deaver made his reputation with tricky, stylish thrillers such as Praying for Sleep and Manhattan Is My Beat. This slick novel is a throwback to those books and Deaver's first wholly outside the Rhyme universe since A Maiden's Grave. The basic plot is simple. An insane but intensely charismatic psychiatrist, Aaron Matthews, for reasons revealed only near book's end, kidnaps his patient, alienated Megan McCall, the young adult daughter of former Virginia prosecutor Tate Collier, and imprisons her in an abandoned mental institution. Tate and his estranged wife go looking for Megan and enlist the cops in their search. Much violence ensues. Deaver's characters are workable but not deep, though there's some psychological probing along the fault lines dividing Tate, his wife and their daughter. The novel's primary appeal arises from its thrills, which are plentiful. Like James Patterson, Deaver writes dialogue-driven prose, in short, strong sentences and paragraphs that demand little from the reader while seizing attention to the max. Tate and his wife are forgettable heroes, but Deaver tells some of the story from feisty Megan's gripping POV, as she fights back against her captor--one dandy villain who delights in conning others through disguise and misdirection, allowing for plenty of plot curves. This isn't Deaver's most accomplished novel but it's high-energy entertainment.

August 9, 2000
Why are psychiatrists always nuts? Harvard-educated shrink Aaron Matthews wants to wreak vengeance on Tate Collier, a prosecutor who did him wrong a while back. But Tate doesn't know what's up until his daughter disappears.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2000
The prolific Deaver is back in this story about how secrets can break a family apart. When Megan McCall, teenage daughter of divorced couple Tate (workaholic husband) and Bett (promiscuous wife) disappears, everyone assumes she ran away. After all, she had been seeing a psychiatrist ever since her alleged suicide attempt, and it was clear she was unhappy at home. We learn early on, however, that a madman impersonating a psychiatrist has abducted her, but we do not know why. The terror of a child gone missing causes Tate and Bett to work together, and in the course of their search, they find themselves communicating better than they ever had. Meanwhile, Megan's captor is filling her head with stories about her horrible parents, and Megan's own memories serve only to back up the horrible claims. As the plot unfolds, each family member confronts his or her own demons, conceding their existence and finally dealing with them. A brisk tale of family angst, this should satisfy Deaver's legions of fans and is likely to turn up on the big screen in a year or two.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)