When a gifted illusionist turns his hand to violent death, The Vanished Man is only one of a series of classic conjuring tricks that paralysed forensic investigator Lincoln Rhyme finds himself having to understand. More important even than the details of technique which Lincoln and his partner Amelia are taught by young illusionist Kara are the conjuror's habits of mind--misdirection piled on deceit piled on false leads. It is not just sleight of hand that deceives the eye; it is where the eye is tricked into looking. Is the killer who calls himself Malerik just after a sequence of showy violent deaths, or is that what he wants Lincoln to think?
This is an impressive addition to Deaver's much-praised sequence of novels about Lincoln and Amelia simply because they find themselves up against an equally intelligent killer with radically different ways of thinking. Their habits of logic and science and legwork are of limited use against someone who constantly stretches the limits of the improbable. Jeffrey Deaver has always been an ingenious thriller writer and this book returns to the sardonic wit of his earliest work as he too engages in endless trickery and confusion of our expectations. --Roz Kaveney
