Twisted: The Collected Stories
Read Twisted: The Collected Stories Online
Authors: Jeffery Deaver
Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Horror, #Suspense, #Anthologies
“[Lincoln Rhyme is] among the most brilliant and most vulnerable of crime fiction’s heroes.”
—New York Post
“Deaver’s labyrinthine plots are astonishing. . . . [He] knows how to play this game for all it’s worth.”
—The New York Times Book Review
Praise for Jeffery Deaver and his
New York Times
bestsellers
THE VANISHED MAN
“Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme novels . . . are masterpieces of modern criminology.”
—Philadelphia Daily News
“A crackling thriller. . . . A page-turner. . . . Engaging. . . . Entertaining, suspenseful. . . .
The Vanished Man
[has] a well-sculpted plot and a fascinating villain.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Ingeniously devious. . . . [The] plot is so crooked it could hide behind a spiral staircase. . . . Deaver delivers. Movie thrillers should be this good.”
—People
“This is prime Deaver. . . . Giddily entertaining.”
—Publishers Weekly
“No one does detail better than Deaver. . . . Well researched and exciting.”
—Booklist
“Deaver’s control of his material is most enjoyable. . . . Deaver should take a deep bow.”
—Santa Fe New Mexican
(NM)
THE STONE MONKEY
“Rock-solid suspense. . . .
The Stone Monkey
performs all the gymnastic plot twists typical of Deaver.”
—People
“Monkey see, monkey do . . . and this monkey did the best so far.”
—Publishers Weekly
SPEAKING IN TONGUES
“A shocker. . . .
Speaking in Tongues
is like
Cape Fear
on steroids. It’s a supra-nasty, but unquestionably suspenseful, tale of revenge. . . . The villain is smooth and beguiling.”
—Los Angeles Times
“What sets this thriller apart . . . are the characters of Matthews and Collier. . . . There’s plenty of action. . . . Enough violence and madness to satisfy the most bloodthirsty of appetites.”
—Chicago Tribune
THE BLUE NOWHERE
“A gripping high-tech page-turner.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A terrific thriller.”
—USA Today
“High-tension wired. . . . Deaver keeps the excitement streaming. . . . [He] fills every keystroke with suspense.”
—People
“The Blue Nowhere
is that rare cyberthriller that doesn’t make us want to log off in the middle.”
—Entertainment Weekly
THE EMPTY CHAIR
“Masterful. . . . Gripping. . . . You’re drawn into Deaver’s diabolical, high-speed fun house, a ride through a thicket of twists that will have you tumbling toward the conclusion as quickly as you can.”
—New York Post
“[A] pulse-racing chase. . . . Twisted. . . . Scientific smarts and psychological cunning.”
—The New York Times Book Review
THE DEVIL’S TEARDROP
“A fiendish suspense thriller. . . . Leaves us weak.”
—The New York Times Book Review
THE COFFIN DANCER
“This is as good as it gets. . . . The Lincoln Rhyme series is simply outstanding.”
—San Jose Mercury News
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ONTENTS
To my sister and fellow writer, Julie Reece Deaver
“All the World’s a Stage” previously appeared in
Much Ado About Murder
(Berkley Prime Crime).
“Beautiful” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
and
The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: Third Annual Collection: Vol. 3
(Forge).
“The Blank Card” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
“Eye to Eye” previously appeared in
Irreconcilable Differences
(HarperCollins).
“The Fall Guy” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
and
The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories,
7th Edition (Carroll and Graf).
“For Services Rendered” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
and
The World’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories,
1st Edition (Berkley).
“Gone Fishing” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
“The Kneeling Soldier” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
and
The Year’s 25 Best Crime,
7th Edition (Carroll and Graf).
“Lesser Included Offense” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
“Nocturne” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
and
Blue Lightning
(Slow Dancer).
“Together” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Crimes of the Heart
(Berkley) and
Opening Shots,
Vol. 2 (Cumberland House).
“Triangle” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
“The Weekender” previously appeared in
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
and
A Century of Great Suspense Stories
(Berkley) and
Best American Mysteries #1
(Houghton Mifflin).
“The Widow of Pine Creek” previously appeared in
A Confederacy of Crime
(Signet) and
The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: Second Annual Collection: Vol. 2
(Forge).
“Without Jonathan” previously appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
NTRODUCTION
M
y experience with the short story form goes back to the distant past.
I was a clumsy, chubby, socially awkward boy with no aptitude for sports whatsoever and, as befit someone like that, I was drawn to reading and writing, particularly the works of short story writers like Poe, O. Henry, A. Conan Doyle and Ray Bradbury, not to mention one of the greatest forums for short surprise-ending drama in the past fifty years:
The Twilight Zone.
(I defy any fans of the show to tell me they don’t get a chill recalling the famous social services manual,
To Serve Man.
)
When I was given a writing assignment in junior high school, I’d invariably try my hand at a short story. I didn’t, however, write detective or science fiction stories, but, with youthful hubris, created my own subgenre of fiction: These tales usually involved clumsy, chubby, socially awkward boys rescuing cheerleaders and pompom girls from catastrophes
that were both spectacular and highly improbable, such as my heroes’ daring mountaineering exploits (embarrassingly set just outside of Chicago, where I lived, and where mountains were conspicuously absent).
The stories were met with just the exasperation you’d expect from teachers who’d spent hours offering us the entire pantheon of literary superstars as models. (“Let’s
push
ourselves, Jeffery”—the 1960s’ equivalent of today’s jargon, “Think outside the box.”) Fortunately for their sanity, and my career as a scribe, I abandoned this vein of angst-ridden outpourings rather quickly and grew more diligent in my efforts to become a writer, a path that led me to poetry, songwriting, journalism and, eventually, novels.