The Skin Collector

The Skin Collector is the eleventh book in the Lincoln Rhyme series by American author, Jeffery Deaver. Criminalist Lincoln Rhyme and his NYPD associates, Amelia Sachs, Ron Pulaski and Mel Cooper are called in to investigate the case of a serial poisoner whose intentional clues left on victims' bodies are baffling, to say the least. As well, news of the death of his latest nemesis, The Watchmaker, sees Lincoln sending Pulaski on a rather dubious undercover mission.

Deaver gives the reader plenty of information about poisons, about tattooing and about New York's underground tunnels. As always, there is an abundance of twists and red herrings. Rhyme's own lab does seem to manage to get results rather instantly, and occasionally, the lack of communication between various sections of the services seems incredible. Nonetheless, there are a few exciting climaxes.

While the crime scene investigation sections and the examination of trace evidence bits are, as always, interesting, even gripping, the bizarre perpetrators are starting to wear the believability fabric just a bit thin: a man who kills his victims by tattooing them, not with ink, but with exotic poisons (a different one for each victim): all this in New York's underground tunnels. Really? A reader's suspension of disbelief will surely only go so far….. Not Deaver's best.