Deaver's skill at weaving a crafty and intriguing suspense story is sound. He has the bare bones of the work down to a science, and when it comes to most of his tales, the bones themselves are strong, hearty, and glistening white.In this case, however, those bones have virtually no muscle.This tale is about Tate Collier, his ex, Bett, and their kidnapped child, Megan. The villian for this tale, a slick-tongued psychiatrist named Aaron Matthews, is a man of such skill that he can talk virtually anyone into anything, a talent that rivals that of our protagonist, Tate, a lawyer who once wielded the same verbal weapons in the courtroom.As I said, the story itself has some intriguing twists and turns, as all suspense tales should, and it offers up satisfying obstacles and the usual mysteries, but they fall flat for a number of reasons.1. When the crux of your tale lies on creating characters of uncanny persuasive abilities, the heart of your novel must lie within the dialogue those characters utilize. In this case, neither Matthews or Collier ever speak convincingly enough, in my opinion, to warrant their being labelled as men who "speak in tongues." And although a lot of interpretation must be allowed for the written medium, it still doesn't seem like Matthews' talent for conniving others is as plausible as the novel would like it to be.2. The book falls prey to a pretty major pitfall for literature of this type, and that is over-elaborate explanations for key motives and behavoirs. We even get treated to a cliched moment of having the bad guy reveal his whole plot to the good guys before actually going through with the plot.3. Implausibility. There are some areas of the book that are downright laughable, aside from the already mentioned superhuman talent at persuasiveness some of the characters possess.4. My biggest pet peeve: Deaver cannot write dialogue for teenagers. In an attempt at creating authenticity, Deaver peppers their dialogue with an abundance of "like"s and "way lame"s so that they sound like rejects from some B-grade rip-off of a Dazed and Confused remake. I understand that kids still occasionally talk like this, but Deaver's use of these trite bits of characterization is so liberal it becomes intrusive and annoying and ludicrous.If you want to try Deaver, check out The Devil's Teardrop or the Bone Collector. This is not worth the effort.
If you look up a definition of cliché writing, this book would be one of the prime examples of it. It is as average as average gets. First of all, I don’t read many crime novels but I have read enough to know what is original and what have been overused over time or beaten to death. Second, I have also watched a tons of movies that focus on crimes such as kidnapping (just as this book does) and I also know what is considered a good story and what passes as a weak attempt at story telling. This is one of those stories. You got a lot of examples of cliché writing such as deviant teenager, parents who got divorced, parents who are too busy to pay attention to their child (why have them if you don’t want to raise them??), teenager has anger issues towards parents, a someone you least suspect acting as a kidnapper but also hiding in plain sight, father having powerful job that lets him take advantage of his friends in high places (FBI, police, etc.), and of course, the biggest cliché ever, parents only caring about their kid only when he/she is in danger. There is nothing new. Parents go from person to person connected to their child, interviewing them, and being shocked when they find out things that they did not know about their daughter. Again, nothing new. Also, I am not a psychopath or someone who knows a lot about kidnapping, but I think if I was to kidnap someone, I would lock them away in a room where they can use half of the stuff in there to hurt/kill me. I would also chain them up a bit so they can’t get away. None of these things the person in the book apparently knows about, yet he can study you for five minutes and know your inner most secrets and personality quirks. I am not buying it that he is this stupid. Deaver tries to write teenage dialogue as best as he can but it comes out pretty weak. It is full of “likes” (almost every other word is a “like”). It gets annoying. Weak effort overall but I will definitely read more of Deaver’s work. I got his Bone Collector book on my list to read this year. P.S. The book had a bit of a twist ending but not worth the read.
What do You think about Speaking In Tongues (2000)?
Speaking in Tongues by Jeffery Deaver is fast paced psychological thriller. There are lots of negative reviews for this book and I can see why! The characters are bit unbelievable, some incidents happening in story are too convenient, the persuasive power of villain is too much to digest. However, story is good, plot tight and narration style intriguing. I was hooked to book from page one, could not put it aside and had to finish it in one sitting. Just loved it and might read it again sometimes in the future.
—Neena
The other two reviews of this book summarise it pretty well; an enjoyable and easy read, quick - very much a page turner - perhaps not quite as good as other Deaver works i've enjoyed. I truly wish I hadn't read The Cold Moon so recently, a lot of the character traits to our villain are reflected in The Watchmaker (Cold Moon). Having said that, it is after reading more and more Deaver I notice patterns in his writing - at least one of the peripheral detectives must be strongly linked to their European heritage to emphasise a point, for instance. In spite of this, it's still a good read - Deaver tricks the reader and again succeeds in having a bloody turn of events finish up with a hopeful outlook. It is sometimes as if he is wrestling with his own conscience as to whether he should be writing "dark" books at all.If you have or haven't read Deaver and need some quick, fast running easy going crime fiction to fill a hole between other works, Deaver is once again your man. That is not to say he is not an excellent writer worthy of our praise, but his work is definitely escapism from putting your mind toward more classic or challenging works. Overally, I can't quite push to four stars in light of the ideas repetition between this and other works. Hell, you probably wouldn't even notice if you hadn't read the two books so close together as I had recently. More to the point, look through your local cheap bookstores and this is probably being flogged for £2 - 5. For such a small outlay, you really can't go wrong with Deaver.
—Gwilym
This novel (pub. 2000) is one of Deaver's non-series "thrillers", about a teenager Megan who is abducted, leading her divorced parents Tate and Bett to re-unite in a book-long effort to find her. The villain appears to be Megan's psychiatrist: although the relationships between all the principals remain cloudy until near the very end of the tale, the author manages to maintain only a modicum of suspense throughout.We generally enjoy Deaver's work, and while this book was intriguing in parts, it also seemed there were elements unrelated to the plot that served to detract and temper our enthusiasm. That Megan had an interracial boyfriend seemed to be almost an incidental side issue; that the parents had largely ignored their daughter throughout her upbringing; and that the leading man Tate, an ex-prosecutor, and the psychiatrist, were both articulate wordsmiths and manipulative orators - these "digressions" seemed more like detours that subtracted from the plot and our enjoyment thereof. Perhaps harsher editing of such asides would have reduced some of the sluggish sections of the story. So all told, while not horrible, this too-routine outing is certainly not one of the author's better efforts.
—Jerry
