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Deaver has also done a yeoman's job putting us into the very creepy mind of a serial killer in those sections where he has placed Daniel Pell into the role of a first person narrator.I'll look forward to Kathryn Dance's return performance in her next novel "Roadside Crosses". The plot is exciting and there are more than sufficient twists and turns to keep a reader well glued to the pages. But it doesn't leap off the pages and stick in one's reading memory or have that deep down gut-wrenching shock value that would put it into a league with Thomas Harris' "Silence of the Lambs", for example.The most enjoyable feature of "The Sleeping Doll" is actually the serious discussion of the science (or art) of kinesics. Most thriller fans will pick up a Michael Connelly novel expecting that it's going to be about Harry Bosch. Highly recommended.Paul Weiss So it's a very pleasant and unexpected surprise to be treated to a new heroine in Kathryn Dance, an investigator with the California Bureau of Investigation who is known for her near psychic interrogation skills, Kathryn Dance is a master of kinesics, the ability to read body language, facial tics, changes in skin tone, key words, intonation and the hundreds of other tiny indicators that let a skilled questioner know whether a subject is lying, uncomfortable, attempting to mislead, frightened or, in some other fashion, is simply avoiding the truth."The Sleeping Doll" is the story of Daniel Pell, a modern day Charles Manson serving life in a maximum security institution for the brutal, gruesome slaughter of the Carmel family - everyone in the family, that is, except for the little girl who was asleep in her bed when the murders took place. Similarly, most Jeffrey Deaver fans (and I expect there's a whole pile of crossover), will pick up one of his novels expecting a story about Lincoln Rhyme and his erstwhile lover, Amelia Sachs. Now the "sleeping doll", as she was dubbed by the media when her family was taken from her, is a teenager and Kathryn Dance needs her help and her distant memories to re-capture Daniel Pell who has engineered a daring escape from custody and looks to be on the killing warpath again.As a thriller, "The Sleeping Doll" is certainly workmanlike and quite compelling.
I have still not received any further contact from seller as to my refund and when I can expect it for both the book and the shipping costs. Both copies I received were paperback. Thank you. Info. for book stated "Hardback".
While Dance manages to hold her own while interviewing Pell, the reader feels the force of his mental acuity.Deaver is also able to help the reader understand how someone like Pell can gain control over another person. Jeffery Deaver is a master at setting a scene and getting into the mind of a master manipulator. It is also the most difficult.
He gathers a family of believers around him and has them do his bidding. While Pell is held at the county jail during the interrogation process, he manages to escape. Kinesics expert Kathryn Dance must get into the head of Daniel Pell, who fancies himself another Charles Manson.
The rest of the book dwells on his escape, the surviving members from his long ago family, and the mental and psychological games he uses to manipulate people.This is the second Kathryn Dance novel I have read. It is a rough story to read, with plenty of violence, but it is a story that fans of the psychological thriller will certainly want to peruse.The Sleeping Doll: A Novel Pell is serving life in prison for the slaughter of a wealthy family including both parents and two of the three children.
One child, a young girl, escaped the slaughter while sleeping in her bed.
I am usually disappointed as I approach the end of a good paperback to find a preview of the author's next offering as opposed to continuation of the story I am enjoying so much.By the time I neared the end of this book, I was praying for a lengthy preview attached to the end so that the number of pages I had yet to endure to conclude the primary tale would be reduced. I have rarely had to concentrate and interpret the meaningfulness to the main story line the frequent divergent paths onto which this book steers the reader.This story could have been told in half the number of pages and would probably have been at least doubly increased in quality.I have never not finished a book that I have started, and this one was truly an effort of endurance. Jeffrey Deaver has shown some degree of aptitude with his writing in the past, but this particular story has all the signs of an author cranking out pulp to the masses just to make a buck.The story was so uneven as to be painful. I love a good mystery/thriller/crime drama and the well written ones just flow into your brain as you read them.
I look forward tomore Kathryn stories, shoe fetish and all. Good book exxcept for the "hairball" at the end. N.Y.C. Highly Recommended.Renee S. Deaver could have found another way to take Kellogg out of the picture instead of this off the wall mishmash at the tip of implausible. Otherwise a good read, a nice new protagonist (better than Rhyme, whom I find creepy.
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