The Midnight Lock

Informationen zum Autor Jeffery Deaver Klappentext The "master of ticking-bomb suspense" ( People ) Jeffery Deaver delivers the latest thriller featuring his beloved protagonists Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs as they search for a criminal whose fascination with breaking locks terrorizes New York City. A woman awakes in the morning to find that someone has picked her apartment's supposedly impregnable door lock and rearranged personal items, even sitting beside her while she slept. The intrusion, the police learn, is a message to the entire city of carnage to come. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to investigate and soon learn that the sociopathic intruder, who calls himself "the Locksmith, can break through any lock or security system ever devised. With more victims on the horizon, Rhyme, Sachs and their stable of associates must follow the evidence to the man's lair and discover his true mission. Their hunt is interrupted when an internal investigation in the police force uncovers what seems to be a crucial mistake in one of Rhyme's previous cases. He's fired as a consultant for the NYPD and must risk jail if he investigates the Locksmith case in secret. The Midnight Lock is a roller-coaster read that takes place over just a few days' time, features surprise after surprise and offers a fascinating look at the esoteric world of lockpicking. Leseprobe Chapter 1 Something wasn't right. Annabelle Talese, though, couldn't quite figure out what that might be. One aspect of this concern, or disorientation, or mystery, could be explained by the presence of a hangover, though a minor one. She called them "hangunders"-maybe one and a half glasses of sauvignon blanc too many. She'd been out with Trish and Gab at Tito's, which had to be one of the strangest of all restaurants on the Upper West Side of Manhattan: a fusion of Serbian and Tex-Mex. Fried cheese with beans and salsa was a specialty. Big wine pours too. As she lay on her side, she brushed the tickling, thick blond hair away from her eyes and wondered: What's wrong with this picture? Well, for one thing, the window was open a few inches; a May breeze, thick with the gassy-asphalt scent of Manhattan, eased in. She rarely opened it. Why had she done so last night? The twenty-seven-year-old, who had dabbled at modeling and was now content behind the scenes of the fashion world, rolled upright and tugged her Hamilton T-shirt down, twisted it straight. Adjusted her silk boxers. Finger-combed her curls. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, feeling for her slippers. They weren't where she'd kicked them off last night before climbing under the blankets. All right. What's going on? Talese had no phobias or OCD issues, except one: New York City streets. She couldn't help but picture the carpet of germs and other unmentionable critters that populated the city's asphalt-and which got tracked into her apartment, even when, as she did every day, she stowed her shoes in a carton by the door (and insisted her friends do the same). She never went barefoot in the apartment. Instead of the slippers, though, the dress she'd worn yesterday, a frilly, floral number, lay spread out beneath her dangling feet. The front hem was drawn up, almost to the décolletage, as if the garment were flashing her. Wait a minute . . . Talese had a memory-more hazy than distinct-of tossing the garment into the hamper before her nighttime routine. Talese qualified her narrative now. The slippers weren't where she thought she'd left them. The dress wasn't in the hamper where she thought she'd tossed it. Maybe Draco, the bartender, always a flirt, had been a little more generous than usual. Was the drink count, possibly, 2.5 on the scale? Careful, girl. You need to watch tha...

Auteur

Jeffery Deaver

Texte du rabat

The "master of ticking-bomb suspense" (People) Jeffery Deaver delivers the latest thriller featuring his beloved protagonists Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs as they search for a criminal whose fascination with breaking locks terrorizes New York City.

A woman awakes in the morning to find that someone has picked her apartment's supposedly impregnable door lock and rearranged personal items, even sitting beside her while she slept. The intrusion, the police learn, is a message to the entire city of carnage to come. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to investigate and soon learn that the sociopathic intruder, who calls himself "the Locksmith," can break through any lock or security system ever devised. With more victims on the horizon, Rhyme, Sachs and their stable of associates must follow the evidence to the man's lair… and discover his true mission.

Their hunt is interrupted when an internal investigation in the police force uncovers what seems to be a crucial mistake in one of Rhyme's previous cases. He's fired as a consultant for the NYPD and must risk jail if he investigates the Locksmith case in secret.

The Midnight Lock is a roller-coaster read that takes place over just a few days' time, features surprise after surprise and offers a fascinating look at the esoteric world of lockpicking.