The new book boosts the storytelling acumen onto a new level as Rhyme and Amelia Sachs take on the violent world of Chinese organised crime. Recruited to aid the US government in a highly difficult (and dangerous) task, Rhyme and Amelia succeed in tracking down a cargo ship carrying a group of illegal immigrants along with the sinister human smuggler and killer known as Youling--the Ghost. But the capture of the Ghost goes pear-shaped, and Rhyme and Amelia are launched into a frantic race against time; they must stop the Ghost before he can track down and destroy the surviving families who have gone missing in the cloistered and secretive world of New York City's Chinese community. As 48 hours anxiously tick by, the malevolent criminal ruthlessly hunts the families while his pursuers (aided by a policeman from mainland China) struggle to prevent the carnage. Amelia, meanwhile, has forged a connection with one of the immigrants that may have considerable consequences for t! he relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme.

Needless to say, the tension is ratcheted up as relentlessly as ever (Deaver has few peers in this arena), but it's the new wrinkles that he finds for the quixotic relationship between his two mismatched protagonists that are the wellspring of The Stone Monkey’s forceful appeal.--Barry Forshaw