Thoughts: A couple of posts back I was lamenting the difficulty in finding a new crime author to sink my teeth into. I love a good crime series, something I can return to and catch up with the same characters. I love Val McDermid's Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, I've read all the Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan series and while not a series, I devour Minette Walters.
I knew about Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series, I've even read The Bone Collector before, a long time ago and thought maybe this is what I was looking for - and I was right!
What I want more than anything in a crime novel is the need to keep turning the page - to have to know what happens next and Deaver delivers in spades. I am now eager to see how Rhyme and Sachs develop, how their relationship grows and changes.
Reading this straight after reading Minette Walter's Acid Row also has lead me to reflect on the differences between American and British crime fiction. Straight up, I cannot remember ever reading any American crime fiction that does not have a least one (if not multiple) deaths by gun shot. The gun culture in America is so entrenched I'm not sure an American crime novel without guns would be believable. Body counts in American novels also tend to be higher, with the deaths usually more violent. I also find American crime novels are more action based - car chases, chaotic crime scenes. The British tend to deal more with suspense and analysis. I'm not saying one is better than the other - both can be equally good and bad - but I do find it interesting that I find it a lot harder to find an American series that sustains my interest. Hopefully I have found it in Lincoln Rhyme series.