Edge
Authors: Jeffery Deaver
He's the suspense star behind the new 007 thriller . . . and a “Best Novel of the Year” awardâwinner from the International Thriller Writers organization. Here's what the masters of the genre say about his novels . . .
“Superior . . . harrowing.”
âJames Patterson
“Scary, smart and compulsively readable.”
âStephen King
Great crime fiction from bestselling author
Jeffery Deaver,
who “stokes our paranoia” (
Entertainment Weekly
) and delivers a “thrill ride between covers” (
Los Angeles Times
) every time . . .
EDGE
“Nonstop deceptions, reversals, shocks, and surprises. . . . Breakneck action [for] fans of Deaver's fiendishly clever suspensers. . . . His most successful thriller in years.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)
“Ingenious. . . . Tension-filled. . . . A compelling contest between two cunning opponents. . . . Will have Deaver fans sitting on the âedge' of their seats.”
â
Library Journal
“A fine thriller. . . . A compelling story.”
â
Booklist
“Deaver unveils some nifty new tricks in this edge-of-your-seat thriller. . . . Corte is an exciting new weapon in the author's arsenal of memorable characters.”
â
Publishers Weekly
Edge
is also available from Simon & Schuster Audio
From his “simply outstanding” (
San Jose Mercury News
) Lincoln Rhyme series
THE BURNING WIRE
“Sterling. . . . Not even the brilliant Rhyme can foresee the shocking twists the case will take in this electrically charged thriller.”
â
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“Deaver, master of the plot twist, does his usual magic. . . . Another winner.”
â
Booklist
Two pulse-pounding novels featuring investigative agent Kathryn Dance
ROADSIDE CROSSES
Chosen as a Hot Summer Thriller on TheDailyBeast.com!
“Deaver's got the world of social networking and blogs down cold. . . . That dose of realism adds a fresh, contemporary edge.”
âDavid Montgomery, TheDailyBeast.com
“The techno-savvy Deaver . . . has one of those puzzle-loving minds you just can't trust.”
âMarilyn Stasio,
The New York Times
“Clever and twisted. . . . Don't miss this one.”
â
Library Journal
THE SLEEPING DOLL
“[An] intricately plotted thriller. . . . A dazzling mental contest.”
âMarilyn Stasio,
The New York Times
“The chase is on, and so are the surprises.”
â
Sacramento Bee
The award-winning bestseller from the “grand master of the ticking-clock thriller” (Kathy Reichs, #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
Spider Bones
)
THE BODIES LEFT BEHIND
Named “Best Novel of the Year” (2009) by the International Thriller Writers organization
“A
tour de force
. . . . The suspense never flags. . . . Deaver has no rivals in the realm of sneaky plot twists.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“Hurtles along at 100 m.p.h. . . . An edge-of-the-seat read.”
â
Sunday Express
(U.K.), 4 stars
“A thrill-a-minute wilderness adventure.”
â
The New York Times
“Very engrossing. . . . The biggest twist of all, you'll never see coming.”
â
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(TX)
“Deaver is such a good puppet master that he makes us believe whatever he wants us to believe . . . without telling us a single lie. . . . It's not until we're well more than halfway through the book that we even begin to suspect that we might have made some dangerous mistakes . . . but by then, it's way too late, and we are completely at Deaver's mercy.”
â
Booklist
(starred review)
“He makes the characters live and breathe. . . . Read this and no country walk will ever be the same again.”
â
Daily Express
(U.K.)
“Adrenaline-charged . . . keeps the reader guessing right up to the final page.”
â
The Times
(London)
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For Shea, Sabrina and Brynn
THE RULES OF PLAY
THE MAN WHO
wanted to kill the young woman sitting beside me was three-quarters of a mile behind us, as we drove through a pastoral setting of tobacco and cotton fields this humid morning.
A glance in the rearview mirror revealed a sliver of car, moving at a comfortable pace with the traffic, piloted by a man who by all appearances seemed hardly different from any one of a hundred drivers on this recently resurfaced divided highway.
“Officer Fallow?” Alissa began. Then, as I'd been urging her for the past week: “Abe?”
“Yes.”
“Is he still there?” She'd seen my gaze.
“Yes. And so's our tail,” I added for reassurance. My protégé was behind the killer, two or three car lengths. He was not the only person from our organization on the job.
“Okay,” Alissa whispered. The woman, in her
midthirties, was a whistle-blower against a government contractor that did a lot of work for the army. The company was adamant that it had done nothing wrong and claimed it welcomed an investigation. But there'd been an attempt on Alissa's life a week ago andâsince I'd been in the army with one of the senior commanders at BraggâDefense had called me in to guard her. As head of the organization I don't do much fieldwork any longer but I was glad to get out, to tell the truth. My typical day was ten hours at my desk in our Alexandria office. And in the past month it had been closer to twelve or fourteen, as we coordinated the protection of five high-level organized crime informants, before handing them over to Witness Protection for their face-lifts.
It was good to be back in the saddle, if only for a week or so.
I hit a speed dial button, calling my protégé.
“It's Abe,” I said into my hands-free. “Where is he now?”
“Make it a half mile. Moving up slowly.”
The hitter, whose identity we didn't know, was in a nondescript Hyundai sedan, gray.
I was behind an eighteen-foot truck,
CAROLINA POULTRY PROCESSING COMPANY
painted on the side. It was empty and being driven by one of our transport people. In front of that was a car identical to the one I was driving.
“We've got two miles till the swap,” I said.
Four voices acknowledged this over four very encrypted com devices.
I disconnected.
Without looking at her, I said to Alissa, “It's going to be fine.”
“I just . . .” she said in a whisper. “I don't know.” She fell silent and stared into the side-view mirror as if the man who wanted to kill her were right behind us.
“It's all going just like we planned.”
When innocent people find themselves in situations that require the presence and protection of people like me, their reaction more often than not is as much bewilderment as fear. Mortality is tough to process.
But keeping people safe, keeping people alive, is a business like any other. I frequently told this to my protégé and the others in the office, probably irritating them to no end with both the repetition and the stodgy tone. But I kept on saying it because you can't forget, ever. It's a business, with rigid procedures that we study the way surgeons learn to slice flesh precisely and pilots learn to keep tons of metal safely aloft. These techniques have been honed over the years and they worked.
Business . . .
Of course, it was also true that the hitter who was behind us at the moment, intent on killing the woman next to me, treated
his
job as a business too. I knew this sure as steel. He was just as serious as I was, had studied procedures as diligently as I had, was smart, IQ-wise and streetwise, and he had advantages over me: His rules were unencumbered by
my
constraintsâthe Constitution and the laws promulgated thereunder.