ROADSIDE CROSSES: A Kathryn Dance Novel
Jeffery Deaver
Simon & Schuster
Thriller
ISBN: 9781416549994
ROADSIDE CROSSES, Jeffery Deaver’s latest novel, offers a bit of a departure from the work of one of thriller fiction’s most unpredictable and reliable practitioners. It marks both the return of Kathryn Dance, last seen in THE SLEEPING DOLL, and a continuation of that book, tying up one major loose end left over from its predecessor and creating a number of new ones.
The novel takes place over the course of an extremely busy and deadly five-day workweek that sees Dance challenged personally and professionally on a number of different levels. After a young woman is kidnapped and left to drown in the trunk of a car, a roadside cross commemorating the event is found nearby. The incident is tied to a prior automobile accident in which two high school students were killed. Travis Brigham, a social outcast among his peers, admitted to driving the car involved in the fatal crash. A posting about the accident on The Chilton Report, an immensely popular Internet blog, has resulted in a flurry of online attacks against Brigham, which have grown increasingly incendiary. When the kidnapping occurs, it appears that Brigham is retaliating against the online attacks; as more take place, the Monterey area is thrown into a panic.
In her capacity as a senior agent with the California Bureau of Investigation, Dance is brought into the mix when an area-wide manhunt for Brigham commences, and her skills as a body-language expert are brought to bear during witness interviews. Dance comes to learn that Brigham is immersed in the world of online reality gaming, and appears to be blurring the distinction between the violence of the online world he inhabits and the real world. It is imperative that Dance locates Brigham, who can seemingly appear and vanish at will, but she has a couple of major distractions. The largest concerns the death of Juan Millar, which occurred at the conclusion of THE SLEEPING DOLL. In the midst of Dance’s own investigation, her mother, a nurse at the hospital where Millar died, is inexplicably charged with his murder.
Meanwhile, Dance finds herself in the crosshairs of a bureaucratic investigation, with her boss pinning the bullseye right on her forehead. To make matters worse, Monterey County Sheriff Michael O’Neil, who frequently works with Dance, is suddenly unavailable to help her on the Brigham case. As matters rapidly reach a frightening conclusion, Dance finds that she is placing herself and her colleagues in danger from sources both known and unexpected, even as she slowly begins to face the possibility that her own mother may be a killer.
ROADSIDE CROSSES contains a number of examples of Deaver’s classic methods of misdirection. Interestingly enough, however, he relies less on those tried and true plot elements and more upon straightforward, but no less fascinating, police work. For those unfamiliar with blogging and online gaming, this book will be a real eye-opener into both worlds. And if you are reading solely for his clever diversions, never fear; Deaver still peppers his plot with plenty of surprises, particularly at the conclusion, when they come quickly and furiously. And loose ends? There is at least one waiting at the end, which will be resolved in the next Kathryn Dance novel, scheduled for release in 2011. For now, ROADSIDE CROSSES will keep Deaver’s fans spellbound.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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