Review: I don't think I realized when I downloaded it that it was a short story.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 8, 2014
I downloaded Kindle samples of two Jeffery Deaver books a few weeks ago--one Lincoln Rhyme and one not. I started reading non-Rhyme sample, The October List, first and very quickly decided I would NOT be buying the full book (the writing is noticeably below Deaver's usual standard; in fact, it doesn't even sound like it was written by Deaver). I then read the sample of The Textbook Case and, based on it sounding like the real thing AND in my favorite mystery series, I bought the whole thing.At the time, I thought I was buying a novel; but when I noticed that the whole shebang was not much longer than the sample, I thought something was wrong. I even went back and read it again from start to finish. Then I checked Amazon a realized that it was only a short story. While Mr. Deaver had released short story collections before, I'd never known him to release a single short story before. It was, for me, a big fan of Mr. Deaver AND the Rhyme series, not enough of a good thing, but still an interesting story.This story reminded me a lot of his first book in the Rhyme series, The Bone Collector, in that it has the "will he find her in time?" suspense that Collector had and it is grisly (though perhaps not as much) as I remember Collector being.I suppose you can't fault a short story for ending too soon or seeming to have a bit of a rushed or pat ending, but that is how I felt. It didn't ruin the story for me, but it didn't exactly put the cherry on top of the sundae either.3.75 stars