The Sleeping Doll: A Novel (Kathryn Dance Novels)
by Jeffery Deaver
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeffery DeaverEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-06-05
ISBN: 0743260945
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of The Sleeping Doll: A Novel (Kathryn Dance Novels)
Book Review: No One Does it Better
Summary: 5 Stars
With his new book, THE SLEEPING DOLL, Jeffery Deaver proves, again, that no one does it better than he does. Instead of the East Coast, Deaver takes us to California in one of the best, if not the best, novel he's ever written. Katheryn Dance, CBI (California Bureau of Investigation) kinesics expert is Deaver's hottest new protagonist. Introduced to readers in COLD MOON, a Lincoln Rhyme novel, this novel is Dance, all the way, even with a cameo appearance of Amelia Sachs and Lincoln Rhyme, via phone.
The book starts out with her interrogating Daniel Pell, cult leader called, "Son of Manson", already charged with the murder of an entire family...minus one girl who was in bed sleeping. Theresa Croyton, daughter of multi-millionaire computer programmer William Croyton, is the only survivor of the brutal attack on the Croyton family. You wonder where a story might possibly go from within prison, but he answers that quickly during a savage escape from the county lockup, only minutes after his interview with Dance. She has figured things out, but not in time to alert the proper authorities and prevent his escape.
The rest of the book gives us wonderful inside views of Katheryn Dance and Daniel Pell, as they seemingly play a game of "who can outread who". Jeffery Deaver's trademark twists and turn are all there, but somehow these seem more crisp, more deadly. Each blind alley only seems to be the backdrop for the razor-sharp twist he has planted in the story. I think this new character releases Deaver from a self-imposed prison to tell the story the way he really wants to. With Lincoln Rhyme, yeah you have the great forensic investigative mind, but you're more drawn towards Amelia Sachs, because, right or wrong, she's out there doing something about it. Not putting Rhyme down. He's a fantastic character, but Deaver had so much more to share with his readers. Katheryn Dance allows him to do this. And it's also because of her, and her complex personality, that makes the twists and turns in the story seem so fresh and new, not like they were borrowed from a previous novel.
Jeffery Deaver is a master story-teller. I hope to in time rival his readership with my own story-telling skills. First, however, I'm finding I need to catch up to a master and a mentor who has learned not only to tell a great story, but how to write it down in such a way hat the story-telling doesn't fall apart. I shamelessly call him my friend. The real humbling thing is, I believe that's how he thinks of me as well. Much of who Deaver is goes into his main characters, although a lot went into Michael O'Neill, of the Sheriff's Department. There's a guarded closeness between Dance and O'Neill that you won't want to miss.
If you've never read Jeffery Deaver before, this is an excellent time to start, and an excellent book to begin with. Of all my reviews it receives one of the few 5 stars, because I preserve them for truly remarkable works, of which THE SLEEPING DOLL truly fits the bill.
David Brollier; author of THE 3RD COVENANT
Summary of The Sleeping Doll: A Novel (Kathryn Dance Novels)
When Special Agent Kathryn Dance -- a brilliant interrogator and kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation -- is sent to question the convicted killer Daniel "Son of Manson" Pell as a suspect in a newly unearthed crime, she feels both trepidation and electrifying intrigue. Pell is serving a life sentence for the brutal murders of the wealthy Croyton family in Carmel years earlier -- a crime mirroring those perpetrated by Charles Manson in the 1960s. But Pell and his cult members were sloppy: Not only were they apprehended, they even left behind a survivor -- the youngest of the Croyton daughters, who, because she was in bed hidden by her toys that terrible night, was dubbed the Sleeping Doll.But the girl never spoke about that night, nor did the crime's mastermind. Indeed, Pell has long been both reticent and unrepentant about the crime. And so with the murderer transported from the Capitola superprison to an interrogation room in the Monterey County Courthouse, Dance sees an opportunity to pry a confession from him for the recent murder -- and to learn more about the depraved mind of this career criminal who considers himself a master of control, a dark Svengali, forcing people to do what they otherwise would never conceive of doing. In an electrifying psychological jousting match, Dance calls up all her skills as an interrogator and kinesics -- body language -- expert to get to the truth behind Daniel Pell.
But when Dance's plan goes terribly wrong and Pell escapes, leaving behind a trail of dead and injured, she finds herself in charge of her first-ever manhunt. But far from simply fleeing, Pell turns on his pursuers -- and other innocents -- for reasons Dance and her colleagues can't discern. As the idyllic Monterey Peninsula is paralyzed by the elusive killer, Dance turns to the past to find the truth about what Daniel Pell is really up to. She tracks down the now teenage Sleeping Doll to learn what really happened that night, and she arranges a reunion of three women who were in his cult at the time of the killings. The lies of the past and the evasions of the present boil up under the relentless probing of Kathryn Dance, but will the truth about Daniel Pell emerge in time to stop him from killing again?
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