The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme Book 14) Kindle Edition

Layer upon layer of complications, some hiding others, some mere diversions, all understandable at the end, plus a flashback to a previous adventure. Well done!

I'm glad I got this book before I read all of the negative reviews. I might have passed it up and missed out on this incredible story.The plot is complicated with several stories going on and they don't pull together until the very end. The central focus is the diamond industry. I learned more about diamonds from the earth to the finger than I thought possible. It was interesting enough that I had to Google a few times to get the big picture.There are plenty of villains and plenty of victims, keeping Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs quite busy. It is rare that I find a plot that challenges my brain, but Mr. Denver does it consistently. Also I love cryptic crossword puzzles and was hoping I could find an electronic cryptic crossword device, but no such luck.136

Jeffery Deaver alternates between Lincoln Rhyme and Kathryn Dance novels. In THE CUTTING EDGE Linc returns. With Amelia. And Thom. And Lon. And the whole gang. A serial killer calling himself The Promisor is terrorizing Manhattan and Brooklyn, killing engaged couples. At first it appeared that he might be a diamond thief, but then it becomes clear that it's the couples themselves who are setting him off. "Clear," of course, is a totally provisional word in a Deaver novel. Nothing is clear until we get to page 430, aka the end. There are several hallmarks to a Deaver novel. One is a great McGuffin (here the whole process of producing industrial and jewelry-level diamonds) and the second is a set of largely-unpredictable reversals which bedevil the reader in the novel's third act. Sometimes there are three reversals. I won't report the count for THE CUTTING EDGE because I don't want to spoil the reader's experience.Deaver is the master of the contemporary procedural. In addition to the fascinating material on the work of a 'diamandaire' there is the added bonus in a Lincoln Rhyme novel of Linc's astounding knowledge of Manhattan, particularly its geology and built landscape which enables the detectives to infer crime (and other) locations from the trace left on a perp's Florsheims. This sort of material is even more impressive when you realize that among the hundreds of thousands of Deaver readers are a significant number of individuals with unique expertise that they can marshal instantly to challenge Linc's forensic lore. JD is challenging and delighting his readers in the same way that Linc is challenging and conquering arrogant perps.The bottom line is that this is a solid Deaver novel. The use of the diamond ethos for his McGuffin is a very wise choice. I once contemplated doing a novel on the diamond cartel and quickly discovered that these are very 'competitive' people. They play for keeps. We interviewed a candidate for a professorial position who had written her dissertation on the cartel. She had done much of her research in the British Library and told me that she was certain that she was being followed and that she found her papers disturbed when she had to leave her reading site temporarily.While I thought that one of the 'reversal perps' was flagged earlier, principally by process of elimination from the available list of dramatis personae, the novel is full of surprises, excellent local color, and sweet (and a few sour) interactions among the members of the core ensemble cast.Bottom line: every Deaver fan will embrace THE CUTTING EDGE and be ready for more.

There were more things going on in this than you can shake a stick. I like this kind of story where you have several different actions going on. The pace is fast moving. Like Lincoln Rhyme says it is when all the piece fit together you have the complete. This one was very good in that the ensemble cast of characters all make to the end of the book. Now sure there are some people, who die in the course of the book and you may want them not to die, but that is what the author is looking to evoke from you the reader, empathy. Do the bad guys get their punishment and is justice served that you will have to find out by reading.

I have read, and in a few cases, reread... every Lincoln Rhyme novel. Until The Cutting Edge I have been challenged to take a break from each story... even when my eyes begged me to turn in for the evening. Not so with the latest offering from Mr Deaver.There are several very accomplished mystery writers that I cannot enjoy because of their over emphasis on minutiae. I think of the writing style as “busy”. The Cutting Edge is, in my opinion, busy. Very. Busy. Busy to the point that I felt I was being lectured, schooled, inundated with unnecessary detail that was borderline “showing off”. Deaver’s previous novels solidly established his knowledge of all things criminal and forensic. There was absolutely no need to pad the word count of this novel with repeated ramblings that, on more than a few occasions, forced this particular reader to speed read through complete paragraphs.Furthermore... the assumptions and misinformation regarding social, economic, and political agenda were condescending and distracted from the plot.I have abandoned several authors who have chosen to politicize their writings. I have news outlets, blogs, social media and a myriad of additional sources for my political, financial, and social justice facts and figures. Misinformation within a fictional presentation is still misinformation. It negatively reflects on believability of the story’s characters, plot and necessary details.Hopefully, this is a one off deviation from straightforward forensic brilliance and page turning criminology. “just the facts Ma’am.” Please.

A Russian doll where each one inside is larger than the one you opened. I'm not very taken with the Lincoln Rhyme character yet, but Amelia Sachs has some appeal. This being my first of the series, I'll wait 'til I've read others to make up my mind.