Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver is an American thriller writer best known for the Lincoln Rhyme series, following a brilliant former NYPD forensic criminalist left quadriplegic after an on-duty accident who continues to solve crimes from his bed, working through his partner and eventual romantic interest, detective Amelia Sachs. The first novel, The Bone Collector, was adapted into a 1999 film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, and the series later inspired the NBC television drama Lincoln. Deaver's books are known for meticulous forensic detail and a signature structure of late, carefully engineered plot twists that upend readers' assumptions in the final chapters.

Beyond Lincoln Rhyme, Deaver has written the Kathryn Dance series (following a body-language expert and interrogator), numerous standalone thrillers, and two James Bond continuation novels commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate, Carte Blanche among them. A former journalist and lawyer, he is known within the thriller genre for his craftsmanship around misdirection and reversal, often building entire novels around a reveal that recontextualizes everything preceding it. New readers should start with The Bone Collector for Lincoln Rhyme, since later books build on his and Sachs's relationship, though the forensic mysteries themselves are self-contained. Deaver continues to publish thrillers regularly and remains one of the genre's most awarded practitioners.