The Coffin Dancer is a 1998 novel by Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery/crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a successful career as a best-selling...

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The book features his regular character Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective.

Plot

Detective Lincoln Rhyme, the foremost criminalist in the NYPD, is put on the trail of the Coffin Dancer, a cunning professional killer who has continually eluded the police. Rhyme, a quadriplegic since a line-of-duty accident, uses his wits to track this brilliant killer who's been hired to eliminate three witnesses in the last hours before their grand jury testimony. Rhyme works with his arms and legs, New York City cop Amelia Sachs, to gather information from trace evidence at the crime scene to nail him, or at least to predict his next move and head him off.

So far, they have only one clue: the assassin has a tattoo on his arm of the Grim Reaper waltzing with a woman in front of a coffin.

Summary

The Coffin Dancer struck 5 years ago, killing two techs who worked with Lincoln Rhyme, and it seems he has struck again. Then it was a bomb in a wastebasket, this time it's on a plane. A coverup is witnessed, a hitman hired, and all hell breaks loose. There are three key witnesses the Dancer has been hired to kill and he just finished off the first. The police and the Federal Bureau Investigators are desperate to keep the last two safe as well as finding the killer behind the bombing. Rhyme is more interested in just finding the Dancer. He drops his current case and dives head first, so to speak, into the evidence. Amelia Sachs, his arms and legs, is sent off to every crime scene in hopes to find that one shred of evidence to pin down the killer. The crime scenes pile up as they get closer to their man then they could ever hope to be, but still he outsmarts them. This game of cat and mouse they play ends many lives, just to save the two.

The Dancer

The Coffin Dancer, Rhyme's adversary in the novel, is a cunning, deceptive and highly intelligent professional assassin. He is described as being a small, thin man with unremarkable features. His real identity is never revealed in the novel. In his final interview with Lincoln Rhyme, he skilfully evades Rhyme's attempts to uncover his true identity by confusing his captors. The Dancer is a consummate professional as proved by the lengths to which he goes to complete his assignments. He is witty and sophisticated and has an uncanny knowledge of human nature. Deception is his greatest weapon, a tool he uses to his advantage. He is supremely confident of his abilities and even refers to his targets as 'corpses' before he has completed his assignment.

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