XO – Author Jeffery Deaver – 98,000 ~ words, $26.95 HC / $12.99 E
I finished reading XO while sitting in the front row of the Poisoned Pen (our cherished local bookstore) just as Jeffery Deaver took the microphone on stage. Perfect timing! Except … I couldn’t think of any questions to ask him that wouldn’t spoil it for everyone else. So I sat there recalling the day when the book came out. I’d ordered it without a second thought but when I went to pick it up, I read the liner and almost put it back. Country music? With lyrics that play a role in the story? As a fan of classical music, I hesitated. I handed it back to the cashier who asked what was wrong. I told her.
She said, “It’s Deaver.”
Yes. Of course. What was I thinking? Only Deaver could make country music not only palatable but exciting, smart, and actually interesting. If real country music had lyrics on this level, I might give it a listen. Might.
If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you know I hold up Jeffery Deaver’s Bodies Left Behind as the quintessential suspense/thriller. You’ve no doubt heard me recommend that new writers deconstruct it before imagining themselves ready to pursue a career in writing. It stands head and shoulders above everything else I’ve read. Unfortunately, and I consider this a personal defect, I’ve not read everything Mr. Deaver has written. There well could be another of his books that is even better. I don’t know because somehow I missed his work for many years. I discovered Broken Window in a box my wife was giving to the library. (She used to read hardcovers before switching to ebooks. Now I’ll never know what great authors she’s not sharing with me. Who is this E.L. James anyway?)
I’ve kept up with Mr. Deaver ever since and have not been disappointed. His latest book features his more recent detective, Kathryn Dance, as well as guest appearances by Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. This book does not rise to the level of skin-crawling-WTF-shrieks as Bodies, but it does what I love most: it keeps you guessing.
I’m about as cynical a mystery-solving reader as you can get. I naturally look beyond the obvious characters to find the real-bad guy per the mystery/thriller/suspense formula. You know the one I mean: the hero assembles four to five clues that point the reader one way but the hero intuits something else and solves the problem. Then a twist develops that we never see coming sending the ending into chaos. But the hero adapts and wins. Yeah.
Jeffery Deaver does not do formula suspense.
A quarter of the way through I had this one PEGGED! I’m telling you, I knew the surprise. Halfway through I was willing to bet money on it. So, about two-thirds of the way through, an evil murderous duo appears out of nowhere! Guess I was wrong. Well, they didn’t appear entirely out of nowhere. All the clues were there. I just misread them. Or ignored them. When the first surprise was revealed, I looked at the pages, and said, “Wait, there’s a whole lot more reading to go. What don’t I know?” So, I dusted off my original hypothesis and said, “Must have been right.” But no. A second surprise ending, three-quarters of the way through erupts. And it was my hypothesis! So I was right after all. According to the formula, that should be the end. But there were still too many pages left. What on earth? And then, bang. No. The second ending had a surprise ending. Three in all. And all I could think was, How did Deaver do that?
Not many writers can pull three twists in a hundred pages without leaving giant plot-holes. Jeffery Deaver is one of the few. Fewer still can work real lyrics that you can hear in your head without ever listening to the album (yes, there is an album). And even fewer can pull it off with surprises, twists and turns. This book pulls all of Mr. Deaver’s multiple careers together, law, journalism, music and writing. That depth of experience makes him as unique as his stories.
Yes, this is a great book for suspense fans.
If colleges wanted to truly educate their MFA students, they would be teaching Jeffery Deaver not James Joyce. His is the blue print for modern literature.
Peace, Seeley James
