Roadside Crosses is a thriller by Jeffery Deaver, featuring one of his regular characters, Kathryn Dance. However, her signature skill of kinesic analysis (the ability to read body language, making her an ace interrogator) isn’t really needed in this story – much of it is set in CyberSpace. The story includes Michael O’Neil, Kathryn’s colleague whom she has admired from afar for several books. It also introduces Jon Boling, an IT expert who is brought into the inner circle of Kathryn’s team to assist with the investigation.
A central theme is a fictional blog that dives into local issues and is a magnet for vicious, under-informed comment from locals. Originally, the author supplemented the book by maintaining the blog at thechiltonreport.com, but it’s no longer available.
I found the book had too many story lines running in parallel and it would have been better to concentrate on one or two of them. For example, Dance’s mother is accused of a mercy killing and is arrested – but that turns out to be a sub-plot that doesn’t lead anywhere. Whilst the author did tie up all the loose ends of the story lines, I thought that the actions of the killer were completely out of proportion to his stated predicament and motivation.
musingstudio 