Manhattan is my beat it was written early in Jeffrey Deaver’s career in 1988 and later revised in 2000. Two other works he wrote in 1988 have not been republished and are hard to find. He was thirty-eight years old when these were written. Before that, he worked as a corporate (non-criminal) attorney.
Best known for his serious Lincoln Rhyme books about a quadriplegic detective, this book pays homage to old movies and young fantasy thinking. His main character, Rune in his twenties, sees life as magic and fairy tales and has a real passion for old movies. When he goes to retrieve a rented movie from an old man he has grown fond of, he finds him dead. She is convinced that the reason she has rented Manhattan is my beat so often it is because it contains a clue to the whereabouts of the lost money. The money disappeared in the real-life bank robbery on which the film is based.
Her naïveté is charming and gives her the courage to pursue Mr. Kelley’s death, when it seems the police and her more reality-based boyfriend aren’t interested. She becomes a quest until the bad guys catch up with her. This is a fun game that showcases Deaver’s early talent for suspense. As he says, the plot can have wonderful suspense, but if you don’t like the characters, it’s not a well-written story. Rune is an attractive character, who is forced to grow up a bit in this adventure. There are two more Runes books in the trilogy, including Death of a blue movie star Y hard news.
I haven’t started the series featuring Kathryn Dance, a body language expert, but I hope to review them in the future. Deaver plans to do alternate books between the Dance and Lincoln Rhyme characters in the coming years, and recently completed the book that will be the basis for the next James Bond movie, White card.
