Twisted: The Collected Stories of Jeffery Deaver (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "Marissa Cooper turned her car onto Route 232, which would take her from Portsmouth to Green Harbor, twenty miles away..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title applies in several ways to this wicked collection of crime short stories by bestselling author Deaver (The Vanished Man, etc.): to many of the stories' characters and protagonists, who include murderers, adulterers, thieves; to the stories' arcs, which offer numerous bends and surprises; and to the general tone of the tales-as Deaver says in a brief introduction, "In a story, I can make good bad and bad badder and, most fun of all, really bad good." Of the 16 stories, 15 are reprints, some from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, some from its counterpart Alfred Hitchcock, while one, a Christmas tale featuring Deaver's beloved quadriplegic crime-buster Lincoln Rhyme and his sidekick, Amelia Sachs, is original to the anthology. The opening story, "Without Jonathan," is representative of Deaver's approach here. A woman, Marissa, drives along a Maine road, tormented by images of her husband drowning at sea. She's on her way to meet a man, presumably her first date since her husband's death. Cut to the man, shown strangling a woman-is our heroine about to encounter a serial killer? The two meet... and it turns out that he's a hit man hired by Marissa to kidnap her cheating husband aboard the husband's ship, then throw him overboard. And so it goes in story after story, all characterized, in addition to clever plotting, by brisk characterization and compact, efficient prose. The Rhyme/Sachs entry, "The Christmas Present," is the cherry on the tart, as grumpy Rhyme and sweet but dangerous Sachs set out to save a woman from one apparent predator only to have to rescue her from another. Like an afternoon snack, this snappy volume will stave off hunger for Deaver fans until his next novel appears.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Deaver, the author of a string of deliciously convoluted thrillers (his best work is the Lincoln Rhyme series, featuring a quadriplegic crime solver), offers his fans a real treat. This short story collection lives up to its title in more than one way: the stories are twisted, and so are many of the characters, a tasty assortment of murderers, thieves, con artists, and other no-goodniks. The best thing about the stories, however, is that we don't really know what they're about until the very end. Deaver is the grand master of the plot twist: his novels regularly perform elaborate about-faces, making us rethink much of what we believe about a character, a subplot, a seeming coincidence. His short fiction is like that, too: what appears to be a story about a man plotting the perfect murder, for example, becomes, in its final moments, something altogether more chilling. We're stunned, and then we think, OK, that makes perfect sense, but why didn't we see it coming? That's the beauty of a Deaver story: we never see the twist coming. These 16 stories are polished gems, beautiful examples of what splendid intricacies can be wrought in a small space. As an added bonus, one of the stories, featuring Lincoln Rhyme, has never been published before. For Deaver's fans, and any reader who likes that little thrill you get when a story takes an unexpected right-angle turn, this one's an absolute necessity. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743491599
• ISBN-13: 978-0743491594
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #139,048 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Devious and clever, it keeps you guessing!, May 20, 2005

By	Sheri in Reho (Rehoboth Beach, DE) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Deaver has been my favorite mystery/thriller novel writer for several years so, when I saw this short story collection by him, I figured I had to give it a shot. Glad I did! He doesn't call this collection "Twisted" by accident. Each story features a devious, crazy or grin-inducing twist and the book is a quick read.

If I have any criticism of this book it is that, after a while, I started (often unconsciously) applying mental energy to trying to figure out what twist was coming in each new story instead of paying full attention to the story. It bugged me, but not THAT much. The stories are not all the same level of quality but most are very enjoyable. I recall only one that I didn't think should have been in the book. Being a special fan of Deaver's Rhyme character, I especially liked the story featuring Rhyme & Sachs.

This would be a great beach read...quick and in short spurts and not as grisly or scary as his novels.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Does not disappoint., August 27, 2006

By	D. M. Annunziata (Dallas, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a collection of short stories, all of which I found thoroughly enjoyable. They are all very much twisted, so truth in advertising lives! I won't go into detailed summaries of all the stories, but they all have a neat little twist at the end.

My favorite story would probably be "Fall Guy" with it's very satisfying twist. But I found "The Weekender" and "Gone Fishing" very chillingly disturbing and "Triangle" probably has the most unexpected ending.

I had never read anything by this author before - this is the first - but I absolutely must get Garden of Beasts now, as there is an excerpt at the end of this book and I made the mistake of reading it. Oooh, those publishers know their business, don't they?

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All bets are off!, January 26, 2004

By	Sebastian Fernandez (Tampa, Florida United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Twisted: The Collected Stories of Jeffery Deaver (Hardcover)

Even though I have read several novels by Jeffrey Deaver, I had never come across any of his short stories and it was a nice surprise to discover the high quality of this collection. Most stories are superb, and since I have not read any of them before I was delighted with the book. But it is only fair to warn those people who have read short stories by this author in the past, because there is only one story that has not been published before. The new story, "The Christmas Present", is the one I liked less in the whole book. It seems that the author (or someone at the publishing house) had the idea to introduce a new story when there was not sufficient time left to maintain the level of quality. The story is considerable worse than any of the others. It looks as if Deaver had run out of ideas and decided to use his "usual" characters, Rhyme and Sachs, in a failed attempt to salvage the task.

The author explains in the introduction the difference between a novel and a short story, besides length, describing the short story as a "genre" in which the writer is authorized to "cheat" the reader. According to Deaver, in a novel the reader spends time and emotional energy in getting to know the characters, and therefore, it would be unfair to present an unpleasant ending. But in a short story "all bets are off" and the author will do everything in his power to shock the reader, leaving him/her awed and going back in the story to see if it is really possible that he/she assumed facts that weren't really there. This is why the title "Twisted" fits the theme of the stories extremely well.

For those of you that have read Deaver's short stories in the past and are not sure if it is worthwhile to buy this book here is a list of the stories with a brief description:

1.Without Jonathan - A woman sets up a blind date in an attempt to keep on going with her life after losing her husband.
2.The Weekender - A theft goes awry and the robbers take a very persuasive salesman as their hostage.
3.For Services Rendered - A psychoanalyst focuses his energies on one of his patients when he is bored with his trivial practice.
4.Beautiful - For Kary being beautiful is a curse; she has to go to great lengths to escape the man that is stalking her.
5.The Fall Guy - After being saved by a "knight in a shinning armor", Carolyn presents him with a business proposition.
6.Eye to Eye - Two police officers investigate a heist in Virginia and find themselves interrogating a potential witness they knew from high school.
7.Triangle - Pete plans to commit the perfect murder based on the book "Triangle".
8.All the World's a Stage - Set in the times of Shakespeare, this is the story of a man that wants revenge after his father was framed for a theft and murdered as a result.
9.Gone fishing - Disregarding his daughter's warnings, a man goes fishing in the area where a serial killer has attacked in the past.
10.Nocturne - A music-lover police officer gets involved in the investigation of a stolen Stradivarius after failing to stop the thief during the act.
11.Lesser-included offense - A wealthy killer cannot go to jail and therefore, does not accept any of the deals proposed by the district attorney. The result is a very interesting trial.
12.The Blank Card - Obsessed about his wife's loyalty, Dennis decides to check-up on her and finds an envelope with a Christmas card bearing no name or address.
13.The Christmas Present - Lincoln Rhyme and Amanda Sachs investigate the disappearance of a woman and get involved in a very special Christmas present.
14.Together - Manko tells a friend about the love of his life, how her father interfered to keep them apart and how he had to go to great lengths to stay with her.
15.The Widow of Pine Creek - After losing her husband in a fishing accident, a woman is left alone to manage their business and requests the assistance of a banker she met at a bar.
16.The Kneeling Soldier - Gwen's parents had protected her throughout her life from the usual unpleasantness children and adolescents go through. Now there is a guy stalking her and, and they find themselves in a difficult to handle situation.