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The Empty Chair

by Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver has written a page-turner with his The Empty Chair. Always meticulous and thorough in his research, he's created an extremely knowledgeable boy fascinated with the insect world as well as reprehensible individuals who deal with toxins for profit, regardless of their frightening impact on the public. The Empty Chair is by no means Mr. Deaver's latest work, and it has won at least one award, but in my estimation it should have won at least several more.

The Empty Chair features Mr. Deaver's usual (and very unusual) protagonist, Lincoln Rhyme, the famous criminologist, and his lover, policewoman Amelia Sachs. Rhyme has come to the Medical Center of the University of North Carolina in Avery, some five hundred miles south of Manhattan, for an operation he hopes will somewhat improve his quadriplegic condition. Rhyme has been in a motorized wheelchair since a beam crushed his spinal cord some years previous. Although he knows the operation is high risk, he wants to take the chance that at least he'll be finally able to move his hands…

Simultaneous with his arrival, but in a small town called Blackwater north-east of Avery, a nurse is abducted by the same boy said to have kidnapped another girl previously, while one of the two policemen after him is stung to death by yellow jackets. The nest from which the yellow jackets came was supposedly a trap, since the sixteen-year-old, dubbed 'Insect Boy' is well-known for his interest in bugs. Jim Bell, Sheriff of Paquenoke County, comes to Rhyme for help in locating the Insect Boy and putting him away. Since Rhyme has a little time to spare before his operation, he agrees to assist.

The first girl abducted, Mary Beth McConnell, is thought to be already dead, probably raped and killed, since the young man who tried to stop Insect Boy was also found dead – killed with a shovel – at the spot where Mary Beth was kidnapped. Insect Boy's actual name is Garrett Hanlon. And Garrett has a history of odd mental behavior ever since the rest of his family died in a car accident. Rhyme and Sachs are both somewhat stymied when it's discovered that the crime scene was not only contaminated but a number of usual police procedures have been overlooked or disregarded.

Rhyme has his aide Thom write all the clues Amelia Sachs has collected on a blackboard. He then sends Sachs out to hunt down Garrett and the nurse Lydia, hoping they'll be found before Garrett has a chance of murdering her. A number of conflicting situations arise. While Sachs is searching for Garrett and Lydia along with other cops from the local district, three rednecks – Rich Culbeau, Sean O'Sarian, and Harris Tomel – are also after Garrett, hoping to claim the reward money offered by the McConnells. In addition, Mason Germaine, one of the local cops not assigned to Sachs, wants to shoot Garrett first and ask questions later. He almost succeeds when Sachs and her crew track Garrett and Lydia to a mill, thanks to Lincoln Rhyme's deductive abilities. Garrett is captured and placed in a cell, prior to being shipped to a more secure facility.

A psychologist is brought in, who tries to use the 'Empty Chair' method in discovering where Mary Beth (or her body) might be. Garrett at first wants to put a different person in the 'Empty Chair' but is persuaded by the psychologist to see Mary Beth there. His conversation with the absent Mary Beth isn't what anybody hoped. He only tells the chair that she'll be safe where she is. Mary Beth's location is still unknown.

Mary Beth, however, is very much alive, and very thirsty. Garrett was on his way with Lydia to bring her water when he was caught. Mary Beth sees a man she names the 'Missionary' out of the tiny window in the shack where she's imprisoned, and tries to attract his attention. He doesn't see or hear her and disappears into the woods. When Mary Beth eventually sees him again, he's with another man. Too
late, she realizes that they only intend to rape her.

Sachs, meanwhile, has become increasingly doubtful of Garrett's guilt. The knowledge given to her by the sheriff that Garrett will be tried as an adult and sent to an adult facility increases her doubt. Garrett is only sixteen, and she knows what would happen to him in an adult prison. Eventually convinced of Garrett's innocence, she threatens his guardian with a gun and cuffs him, then frees Garrett and makes off with him. Sachs has now become a felon herself.

Jeffery Deaver incorporates so many twists and turns in this plot that you never really know who the guilty parties are until the very end of the book. You simply HAVE to keep reading to find out how it all comes out. But of course Rhyme uncovers the real criminals at last – and his operation is postponed. We're left satisfied. Mr. Deaver has done it again.

Alan Paul Curtis

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