The Hanging Man

I dithered about the rating for this book. I ultimately enjoyed the book, but I got really tired of all the Red Herrings in this book. It’s beyond absurd. I also don’t think Rhyme has super human abilities that he can figure out what the true motive is beyond all of these people he investigates. I did love seeing Kara from the previous book in this one though. And we get to see some more scenes with Rhymes and Sachs that show them as a couple.

Rhyme and Sachs are called in by Lon Selitto to investigate when a young African American girl (Geneva Settle) is almost sexually assaulted at a museum. It honestly doesn’t make any sense to me why they would be asked to look into what I think most people would consider a waste of their resources. However, we readers of course find out that a hired killer is out to murder this girl for reasons unknown at this point.

We are initially offered clues that perhaps the killer wants to kill this girl so she can not reveal some secret truth about one of her ancestors….and yeah. I maybe rolled my eyes at this whole line of questioning. And also at the fact this girl had letters from the 1800s in her possession and they had not fallen apart. And that her family member wrote better English than most Americans in this time period who were taught to read and write.

There is also some unfortunate stereotypes about African Americans in this one and good lord a whole thing about Ebonics (remember that mess?) that just made me tired. When I stuck to just the science pieces in this book I enjoyed it more.

The Red Herrings in all of Deavers books (The Twist) needs to stop though. At this point I am getting used to the fact that the team will end up being wrong at least 2 or 3 times. And that the murderer will become obsessed with either Sachs or Rhyme (it was Sachs in this one) and that Rhyme will put off going to the doctor repeatedly and tell himself it’s not because he’s scared.

The main thing I found interesting was that this book is taking place after 9/11 and that Rhyme goes into a whole before and after with New York City. He feels annoyed at the people and changes taking place. I wish that we had gotten more of that in this book. However, we really don’t besides some throwaway lines.

We get some Lon is scared story-line due to him standing next to someone who gets shot and killed in front of him. I don’t know how realistic I found it though. The guy has been around forever. We do get Dellray (I love him) and he is back in this one protecting Geneva. We also get a new face in the police department that I hope we get to see again.

We also get into the mind of the killer in this one (per usual) but I didn’t find that aggravating or distracting like in previous books. Maybe because this one was developed as well as The Bone Collector was in book #1.

The ending of the book was a bit weird. We get a sense that Thom and others have collected Geneva a bit into their lives. I wonder if she will be back in future books or at least referenced.