Solitude Creek

by Jeffery Deaver
452 pgs  (Kathryn Dance series #5)

In Jeffery Deaver’s latest book featuring kinesics expert Kathryn Dance, someone is intentionally causing panics in large crowds, and watching as people are injured or killed, crushed or stampeded by the crowd.

As a kinesics expert, Dance is trained to identify when people are telling lies. She works for the California Bureau of Investigations, interviewing suspects and witnesses in order to assist police departments in their investigations. When an interrogation she’s involved in goes terribly wrong, she’s reassigned to the Civil Division of the CBI and demoted to checking business permits and liquor licenses.

One of her first assignments takes her to the local dive-bar called Solitude Creek, where several people recently died or were injured when the crowd believed a fire had started in the kitchen. When they tried to get out the emergency exits, they found them all blocked by a large truck parked up against the back of the building.

Dance quickly learns that there never was a fire at Solitude Creek, but that someone had intentionally led the crowd to believe there was one, and drove them towards the blocked exits. While she’s investigating the non-fire, panic once again breaks out at a crowded event. It quickly becomes evident that this wasn’t an isolated event, and that the perpetrator isn’t planning to stop.

Solitude Creek is trademark Deaver. It's a smart and compelling story. He's a master at making you think you know everything that's going on, only to find out by the end that you were wrong on so many points. Even though this is the fifth book featuring Dance, Deaver writes each book in such a way that you really don't need to read the books in order. This would be a good one to try if you've never read one before.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

XO

XO by Jeffery Deaver
(Kathryn Dance series #4)

Several times while reading Deaver's latest book, I had the thought, "I wonder if Taylor Swift has read this book"--a seemingly random thought, I know, especially because I have no interest in the singer nor her music. But she was obviously the inspiration behind Kayleigh Towne, Deaver's protagonist in XO. She's a crossover country music singer in her early twenties who was once interrupted while giving an award acceptance speech by another musician who didn't feel like she was the most deserving of the award. Kayleigh's success has brought her thousands of fans, accross the country.

Edwin Sharp is one of those fans. But he's not a casual fan, he's obsessed. He believes that Kayleigh's songs were written specifically for him, and that he alone truly understands the feelings and emotions Kayleigh was experiencing when she wrote them. When he receives a canned response to one of his fan letters with the valediction of "XO, Kayleigh," his obsession becomes dangerous.

Edwin travels to Sacramento to see Kayleigh's upcoming concert and he believes, for the next stage of their relationship. And as soon as he arrives in town, people close to Kayleigh begin to show up murdered.  Katheryn Dance, a kinesics (body language) expert with the California Bureau of Investigation, and a personal friend of Kayleigh, gets enlisted in local law enforcement's efforts to prove that Edwin is behind the murders.

Deaver's story-writing strengths are on display throughout the story, as he kept me on my toes trying to determine whether Edwin truly was the obsessed and dangerous fan everyone believed him to be, or whether he was possibly a pawn and was being set up as a fall guy by someone else. I was particularly impressed in this book with how well the character of Edwin was written. Using his mannerisms and dialogue, Deaver did an excellent job of portraying what I believe an obsessed fan would act and sound like.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆