Afternoon Everyone,

Hope you’re all having a good week. I can’t believe we’re half way through already, time is running away with me at the moment. Not that I am in any way complaining; the sooner the weekend comes, the better.

Book 📖

I’m determined to catch up with myself and get this series read. That kind of makes it sound like an arduous task but it’s really not, I am still really enjoying some Lincoln Rhyme so it was a pleasure to listen to The Stone Monkey.

Description 🔖

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are recruited again by the FBI to help with a case but another agency is also involved; the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS). They’ve tracked down a ship carrying two dozen Chinese illegal immigrants and a notorious human smuggler known as The Ghost. Before they can intercept, the voyage turns into disaster and the majority of the immigrants lose their lives. Two families manage to make it out and bury themselves in the depths of the Chinese community in New York. The Ghost, Rhyme and Sachs are looking for the families but who will get to them first?

General Thoughts 🤔

Aaahh I was so happy to be back in New York with Rhyme and Sachs. There’s something about them being in the city that I really love and I missed Rhyme’s apartment being the hub of all activity. I enjoyed the addition of some new characters into Rhyme’s apartment and it was great to have one of them particularly embraced by Rhyme who I have always thought could be a little abrasive with new people.

As I have come to expect from this series, The Stone Monkey is extremely fast paced and delivers lots of exciting action, tension and decoys to throw the reader off the scent. However, this is the first time I have managed to call it pretty early on. It didn’t spoil it in any way, in fact I felt pretty smug with myself every time something would happen that fit in with the story I had already created in my mind.

Characters 👬👫👭

Ok, so obviously I have all the feels for both Rhyme and Sachs already but this book really switched it up. Unless I’ve missed something, I think that this was the first time the fact that they are “romantically involved” has been explicitly acknowledged. I mean I kind of knew it but I felt like it was implied prior to this book. I loved this development in their relationship and the sensitive sides to both of them that we got to see.

My favourite character in this book was Sonny Li. I fell in love with this guy. He was one of the passengers coming from China but turned out to be an undercover policeman and worked with Rhyme and Sachs in trying to find The Ghost. He was hilarious and vulgar and initially I thought rhyme would refuse to work with him. The friendship that they eventually built was so sweet and it was lovely to have Rhyme so openly care deeply about someone other than Sachs.

Writing Style ✍️

Read my other series reviews. It’s Jeffery Deaver; need I say more? He has failed to disappoint me to date.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖️

I had a tiny niggle after the third book that maybe the series was getting a bit samey but this book batted away those niggles and confirmed I still love these books. I can’t wait to see what Rhyme and Sachs throw themselves into next.

😍😍😍😍😍