The Stone Monkey by Jeffery Deaver

Emily | Marlboro High School, Grade 11

Rating: *****

The Ghost is notorious for bringing illegal Chinese immigrants into the U.S. Lincoln Rhyme creates a plan to intercept the Ghost as he travels on an immigrant ship, but it goes terribly wrong. The Ghost escapes, bombs the ship, and endangers the lives of twenty four immigrants. He wants to kill all the immigrants with the bomb, but three families manage to escape. Rhyme and Sachs have to stop the Ghost before he can find and murder the last families.

This book was my favorite so far. Deaver is extremely creative with his mysteries, but I loved this one in particular. The ruthless smuggler pitted against the iconic police duo was a thrilling matchup. A new character was introduced, Sonny Li, who I adored. He was a nice contrast to Rhyme’s gruff manner. Additionally, Deaver included the perspective of at least four characters, which is a record high in the series. This perpetrator was smart, carefully crafting each of his moves. I thought his methods for avoiding the police were genius, and it showed that people can get away with anything if they know the right people. I would recommend this book simply for the ending. It was wild, and I never saw it coming; those are my favorite type of endings.