Publisher's Summary

Best-selling master of suspense Jeffery Deaver is back with a brand-new Lincoln Rhyme thriller. To save the life of a young girl who's being stalked by a ruthless hit man, Lincoln and his protege, Amelia Sachs, are called upon to do the impossible: solve a truly "cold case", one that's 140 years old.

The Twelfth Card is a two-day cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of uptown Manhattan as quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs try to outguess Thompson Boyd, a man whose past has turned him into a killing machine as unfeeling and cunning as a wolf. Boyd is after Geneva Settle, a high school girl from Harlem, and it's up to Lincoln and Amelia to figure out why.

The motive may have to do with a term paper that Geneva is writing about her ancestor, Charles Singleton, a former slave. Charles was active in the early civil rights movement, but was arrested for theft and disgraced. Lincoln and Amelia work frantically to figure out what actually happened on that hot July night in 1868 when Charles was arrested.

Deaver's inimitable plotting keeps this story racing at a lightening-fast clip. With breathtaking twists and multiple surprises, this is Deaver's most compelling Lincoln Rhyme audiobook to date.

Unabridged version available 7/26.

©2005 Jeffery Deaver; (P)2005 Simon & Schuster Inc. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster, Inc.