I really enjoyed the seventh book in the Lincoln Rhyme series. This one also gives us a first look at a character that Deaver spins off into her own series, Kathryn Dance. We get to see the science side of things and also how Dance uses her expertise in kinesics, which is the science of body language, nonverbal gestures, postures and facial expressions. Dance works at the California Bureau of Investigation and gets pulled into this case via Lon Selitto who believes that Dance can help out Rhyme and Sachs as they hunt down a man known as “The Watchmaker.” There is a bit too much science (there were whole paragraphs that made my eyes glaze over) and I have to laugh again at the constant Red Herrings, but I do love the callbacks to “The Bone Collector” in this one.
What I found interesting in this one is that we have Sachs investigating her first homicide solo and also assisting on “The Watchmaker” cases. It’s not often that we get to see Sachs independent from Rhyme while they are investigating. Due to Sachs running her own investigation, you would think her focus would be split, but I got a kick at seeing how she was handling things. However, due to one of the cases (not telling you, no spoilers here) Sachs gets a huge revelation spilled her way.
Rhyme is his typical self. However, he gets thrown a bit with Sachs off doing her own investigation and tends to act petty as hell. I do love that with Sachs running a case though, we get to see the rise of Officer Ron Pulaski that readers met in the last book. Pulaski became a favorite while reading this book.
I also loved the character of Kathryn Dance too. I do wish that we got more details about her though. I know she’s a widow with two kids. I still have no idea how her husband died though. And I really wish we got to see her showcase her abilities more in this one. She was great in every scene and I enjoyed it.
Per usual, Deaver shows us the police trying to track down The Watchmaker. But instead of being in that character’s head, Deaver instead gives us the third person POV of a man assisting The Watchmaker. I have to say that this character, Vincent, was grotesque. I maybe got a bit sick reading about him. I will have to say though that Deaver got way too repetitive with this character though. All Vincent thinks about is “the hunger” and eats a lot. “The hunger” in this case is that Vincent likes to rape women, so yeah, you kind of hope he gets a cement block up his skull eventually.
We also get a reappearance of a character that I haven’t thought about since “The Bone Collector.” That was a nice little reveal that Deaver gives so this quickly pushed the book up to 5 stars for me.
I would say that “The Cold Moon” is typical Deaver. A lot of science with some great dialogue and Red Herrings thrown in. The ending leaves things with Rhyme having a nemesis though. I liken it to Holmes versus Moriarty. I started reading the next book in the series after this, and was glad to see how Deaver continues with this in “The Broken Window.”