The Coffin Dancer

A Novel

By: Jeffery Deaver

Narrated by: Joe Mantegna

Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

In The Coffin Dancer, NYPD criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, tragically paralyzed from a line-of-duty accident, continues to tutor his beautiful protégé, Detective Amelia Sachs, in the art of criminal hunting. Rhyme is certain he's seen this killer before, and his suspicion of an earlier encounter fuels a bitter taste for vengeance. When the chameleonlike assassin targets three federal witnesses for death, the stakes reach a new high. Rhyme's brainpower and Sachs' legwork are the only tools they have to track the cunning murderer through the subways, parks, and airports of a darkly painted New York City. And they have only 48 hours before the Coffin Dancer strikes again.

Deaver uses his trademark plot twists to keep this fast-paced, masterly thriller steamrolling along with breathtaking speed. This is suspense of the highest order.

©1998 Jeffery Deaver. All rights reserved (P)1998 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Jeffery Deaver constructs a taut thriller...Joe Mantegna is in top form and takes listeners on a compelling chase." ( AudioFile)

Too Short

I love the writing of Jeffery Deaver. I have read about 4 other books of his. I had surgery on my eyes, can"t see now. Really VERY disapointed I purchased the abridged version. I didn't realize till too late. This book was so well written and has great characters and a great plot/story line. The readers voice for Amelia Sachs was awful. Very whiney and helpless. Not the Amelia of my reading.

review of the coffin dancer

very disappointing. My least favorite of Jeffrey Deavers novels. Hard to follow. struggled to finish.

Not his best

I really enjoy listening to the Lincoln Rhymes series (The Bone Collector). However, this was not one of his best. Joe Mantegna does a good job narrating, but the story itself did not hold my attention well.

Good book, not a fan of the narrator

After listening to some of the other Lincoln Rhymes books before this one, my ideas of how Rhyme and Sachs personalities are is nothing like how this narrator's voice is in this book and The Empty Chair. Although, I liked this narrator in The Cold Moon...or maybe I was use to him by then. Mr. Mantegna seems like more of a romance novel reader.

Excellent book

So good it made up for how awful the narration was on the first one

Abridged - ugh

I don't like abridged books - I got it for Joe Mantegna's reading and story, only got one of the two.
I had to look all over, I finally saw where it says abridged. UGh.

Deaver is excellent.

I decided to start over as it has been years since I read any of the Lincoln Rhyme series. Audible is a pretty cool service. Perhaps it was how I downloaded it, but I did encounter an error of repeated dialogue with around 3 min to go. Hopefully others do not encounter this error. Highly recommend any of Deaver's work.

Okay not as good as I thought it would be

It was good but not as good as bone collector maybe I visualized bone collector because I saw movie

Excellent

Would you consider the audio edition of The Coffin Dancer to be better than the print version?

Yes

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Coffin Dancer?

The twist in who was who near the end

Have you listened to any of Joe Mantegna’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes and great!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

No

Any additional comments?

No, but a good book

Vast improvement

The Coffin Dancer is a vast improvement on the first book in the Licoln Rhyme series, The Bone Collector. The central storyline, being a race against time to stop and catch a killer, has an inherent tension which holds the interest throughout. The writing is excellent, without a word being wasted, everything adds either to the plot or the depth of the characters.

On a personal note, I found the central villain/s to be very interesting. The characters are intriguing and complex, they are not what I would call "boo-hiss" baddies. The main characters of Lincoln and Amelia (Sachs, his protege) are much more complete in this book, I feel like I am getting to know them better now, which makes me root for them to succeed in their manhunt.

A round of applause for the narration by Joe Mantegna, which was excellent throughout. His voice is very clear and easy to listen to, and his pace and timing were very well suited to this book and writing style. I see he is also the narrator of the next book in the series, The Empty Chair, so I am already looking forward to that listen.

I am a fan of Jeffery Deaver, and I prefer his mix of police procedure and forensic work to some of the other writers out there, who place too much emphasis on either one or the other. More of the same next time please!

Abridged crime: never again!

Would you try another book written by Jeffery Deaver or narrated by Joe Mantegna?

I love Jeffery Deaver and Lincoln Rhyme, but the abbreviation left out key elements of the story, making the conclusions illogical and impossible to follow. I bought the abridged version by mistake, and I will check very closely from now on!

Would you ever listen to anything by Jeffery Deaver again?

Absolutely, as long as it is UNabridged

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Yes, I liked the performance.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Coffin Dancer?

None - cutting out scenes makes it impossible to follow the story and the clues.

badly read

i was so excited after listening to the 1st book of lycoln rhyme that i couldn’t wait for book 2. it was disappointing as it was read really badly. i don’t understand why you didn’t use the same guy in book 1 for all the books. jeffery harding was able to do voices for every character unlike joe mantentegns. joe didn’t change the level of his voice and he always sounded the same person making it difficult to differentiate between characters. Really frustrating to listen to!!!

so gutted it has turned me off reading the following lincoln books!!! gutted!!

Good story? too much missing in abridged version

One minute the bad guy is cornered then the next chapter he is planning his next kill? the abridged version is totally disjointed Only available on Audible as an abridged version, will be my last purchase as such, like reading a book with random pages pulled out. So disappointed I emailed publishers (no response). If its not the full version give this series a miss, too much detail missing for a satisfactory listen.

Abridged too far

I really like this story and downloaded it along with The Bone Collector to introduce my girlfriend to Deaver but they cut so much out of the book that you lose the magic of Lincoln. At points this version is jarring because of the missing sections at at other points there's so much missing that it sounds like the characters are jumping to wild conclusions as opposed to being great at their jobs. A good example of this is the second plane flight, it's omitted entirely, Lincoln just saves the day and you never know how.

Very disappointing - but please read the book!

Don't buy this

Why someone would cut a Lincoln Rhyme novel down to 5 hours I'd never know. Then to get my fix on the rhyme novels I decided to bite the bullet and buy this. Don't it's not worth money/ credit. The narration is beyond poor as in usual Jo montagna style everyone including sacks sounds like a 'wise guy' story didn't make much sense as 10 hrs have been cut. Come on Audibles do this book properly please.