Jeffery Deaver, The Bone Collector
Coronet, 1997
By Nimish Dubey
They say that films seldom do justice to the books on which they are based. Well, that is definitely the case with Jeffrey Deaver's The Bone Collector. The film made headlines when it was released in 1999, and in India at least, there was virtually no mention of the fact that it was actually based on a book. Nay, we were too busy sighing over Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, depending on our orientation!
All of which was a massive pity because the book is quite a riveting read. The plot revolves around a series of murders that are being committed in New York. In each case, the murderer leaves a clue about where he/she will strike next. The problem is that these clues are very cleverly disguised (and placed) and can be deciphered only by a forensic expert. The police turn to Lincoln Rhyme, one of the world's leading forensic criminologists. Nothing surprising in that, eh? Well, the catch is that Rhyme is quadriplegic who is able only to move his head and one finger. He was injured when a roof collapsed on him while he was collecting evidence at the scene of a crime. Faced with spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, Lincoln is desperately attempting to convince a doctor to end it all for him (in his state, he cannot even commit suicide) when the murders are brought to his notice. Although still determined to end his life, he agrees to help out his former colleagues in the police one last time.
Helping him on the case is Amelia Sachs (they changed the character's name in the movie), the police officer who discovered the first murder victim and then actually stopped a train from damaging the crime scene. Impressed by her dedication, Rhyme insists that she acts as his 'eyes and legs' on each crime scene, instructing her through a phone. However, Sachs does not want to be part of the investigation and this leads to a number of confrontations between the two of them—the most spectacular occuring when Rhyme asks her to cut off the hands of a victim!!
As the book progresses, Rhyme keeps getting closer to the murderer. Unlike the movie in which the police cotton on the modus operandi of the killer (he/she is evidently inspired by some famous crimes committed by a serial killer in the past) pretty early, here Rhyme and Sachs are virtually attempting to guess the murderer's next move and desperately hoping to save the victim. There is almost constant tension in the air and the denouement is not as straightforward as in the movie—there is a little twist or two. In fact, there are a quite a few incidents in the book that are not covered in the movie—one of the few occasions when Hollywood would have been better off making a longer movie. (Incidentally, have you noticed how many Hollywood blockbusters span more than the regulation 90–110 minutes—Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, Titanic, etc. Methinks Hollywood needs to extend its films just as much as Bollywood needs to trim them!)
Bodies, stunning deductions, blood, arguments and politics—The Bone Collector serves up dollops of them all (it is a 400-page book, after all). Mind you, some of the forensic analysis does get a bit technical and tiresome at times. The book also occasionally seems to give the impression that a good forensics department is all you need to solve a crime—forget good old observation and deduction. There is none of the hectic legwork that the likes of Rebus, Wexford and Pascoe (hell, Dalziel would never move an inch if he could help it) put in. Most of the times, Sachs gets the clues, Rhyme does some complicated analysis, and hey presto! things are clear as daylight.
But in spite of all this, the book is a riveting read. Deaver is no Dexter or Rankin (and there is only one Reginald Hill anyway—when last spotted, the Almighty was searching for the mold that made him) in terms of narrative skill, but he makes a decent fist of his task. There are some memorable exchanges between the characters—especially those between Rhyme and his helper, Thom (nope, not the massive Queen Latifah; that was only in the movie). And even Sachs and Rhyme do build up a chemistry of sorts. Deaver also has an almost Stephen King-like ability to convey the terror of a victim—the passage in which he describes the feelings of a girl who has been left to be eaten alive by rats that is particularly chilling.
The Bone Collector is not a great book, but it is definitely a good one.
RATING: 6.5/10