Simon & Schuster
June, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4999-4
Hardcover, 397 pp., $26.95
Logic and Intuition, one or the other, is how Kathryn Dance solves the crimes she investigates. The California Bureau of Investigation Special Agent, in the third in the series featuring the body-language expert, faces a murder mystery involving the cyberworld of games and blogs. And her skill in going from A to B to X is largely clouded by a shrewd killer and the complete lack of credible clues.
A young teenager becomes the target of countless postings on a blog criticizing him for driving a car that crashed, killing two young girls. As the attacks mount, he disappears and various persons who posted comments on the web are attacked or murdered after crosses are planted on the previous day on the sides of roads.
This reader having just finished another novel involving computer games, which was much shorter and more concise, the overwhelming detail in Crosses, while to some degree necessary, was a bit much. As well, composed with the author’s accustomed ability to provide twists and surprises, the plot and development seemed to be extremely contrived. Despite these shortcomings, the novel was surprisingly interesting, and, of course, being a Jeffery Deaver book, well-written.
