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Ah,
what sort of luck is it, and how is it that we live so right, that
but a few short weeks before Christmas we get an unexpected present
from Pocket Books in the form of a new novel from Jeffery Deaver? The answer is an author's restlessness, a desire to retell
a tale previously told and to tell it better than it was told before.
SPEAKING IN TONGUES was originally published in Great Britain about six years
ago. And a fine tale it was; but Deaver, upon rereading it, felt
that it didn't have some of those little twists and turns and curves
that make a Deaver novel a Deaver novel. He accordingly did
some major revisions for the American hardcover market, and we are
thus blessed.
I knew
that SPEAKING IN TONGUES was going to be good (for reasons other
than the legendary "by Jeffery Deaver" across the cover, of course)
when I discovered that my wife had filched it from my reading pile
and had stayed up all night reading it. I mean, she doesn't even
let me keep her up all night. More's the pity...but I understand.
I really do. Mr. Deaver has cost me many a night's sleep when I
have been foolish enough to crack open one of his books in the evening.
I mean, gee, you don't have to sleep every night, do you?
Just
because SPEAKING IN TONGUES was published in Britain first does
not mean it is one of those English drawing room mysteries, where
the amateur sleuth figures things out by his fifth snifter of Napoleon
brandy. No, this one is set in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Tate
Collier, former prosecutor, now crackerjack attorney, is supposed
to have a visit with his daughter Megan. Megan is a little disturbed;
she is engaging in self-destructive behavior, is exhibiting signs
of a schizoaffective disorder and is hanging out with the wrong
crowd. When Megan turns up missing, Collier and Bette McCall, Megan's
mother and Collier's ex-wife, at first think that their daughter
has run away, which would be bad enough. But she hasn't run away.
Megan
has been abducted by Aaron Matthews, a brilliantly twisted psychiatrist
who has a mad-on of gargantuan proportions against Collier. This
sets up a brilliant game of cat-and-mouse, with Matthews always
a step or two ahead of his pursuers. Matthews has two advantages:
his brilliant intellect and the fact that his pursuers have absolutely
no idea who he is. But Collier has a couple of aces as well: his
power of persuasion and his ex-wife. As she notes at one point,
"You'd kill for your lover, but you'd die for your child." Just
so.
Deaver,
with each new novel, further establishes his reputation as a novelist
who simply cannot be beat. He is a master strategist, one who keeps
his readers guessing and fooled from first page to last. And be
warned: there is one passage in SPEAKING IN TONGUES where he demonstrates
that if he had turned his pen toward the macabre instead of the
mysterious he could well give Stephen King a run for the roses in
that department. Turn the page, but forego the popcorn.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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