browser icon
You are using an insecure version of your web browser. Please update your browser!
Using an outdated browser makes your computer unsafe. For a safer, faster, more enjoyable user experience, please update your browser today or try a newer browser.

“Speaking in Tongues” by Jeffery Deaver

Posted by on April 11, 2018

Pocket Books, 2000.

This book was special to me, not because it had great characters or plot, but because it was the first book I read using reading glasses. A few weeks ago I admitted to myself that my reading time had been greatly reduced because it was no longer a pleasure. Too much squinting, too much eye strain. So I got a pair of reading glasses. I am still getting used to them and they are not perfect, but I can now, once again, read for hours and enjoy it.

The book. Pretty good, judging by how easily it grabbed me and hung on to the end. The story was a bit of a stretch on the believability scale, but it had some surprises and kept me guessing to the end.

Jeffery Deaver is mostly noted for his Lincoln Rhyme series of mysteries which I love. This is not one of them. The protagonist in this one is Tate Collier, a divorced lawyer, former prosecutor and father of 12-year-old Megan McCall. Poor Megan has a number of issues – including the divorce and some deep-seated anger toward her father – for which she is getting therapy. The book begins with Megan talking to a substitute therapist (her regular therapist had family issues to address) who ends the session by kidnapping her. Because he isn’t a therapist at all but a psychopath of the first order.

The faux therapist, at various stages in the book, also passes himself off as a police investigator and an FBI agent. He is skilled at reading people and telling them what they want to hear. He then seduces them, kills them and/or compromises them in some way to make them useless as witnesses. He might be fun at a party, but don’t go home with him.

The heart of the book deals with Megan struggling to escape from her prison – an abandoned mental health hospital – and her parents’ effort to find her and to convince authorities that she has been kidnapped.

I won’t spoil the ending other than to say that Megan survives and the villain doesn’t. Not a great surprise there, but it is a fun read finding out how it comes about. The incredulity of some of the plot spoils it a bit, but it is still fun.

7.5 out of 10.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *