Twisted: The Collected Stories of Jeffery Deaver

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?

If you've read any other books by Jeffrey Deaver (and I've read most of them), you know what a strange (OK, weird) mind this author has. This book is a collection of his short stories and includes an original story about a favorite character of mine, Lincoln Rhyme. Each story is, of course, carefully crafted with a twist or turn of fate. How can he get so devious in just 20-30 pages per story? Characters include an ad exec, William Shakespeare, a beautiful woman, a boy and other assorted personalities. Settings include olde England, New York City, the New England countryside and the eastern shore. You never know if the good guy will win, the bad guy, or what sneaky outcome the author might have conjured up. You're quickly engrossed as each story begins, and you never know who's evil or who's nuts. And do be sure to read Mr. D's introduction. It's a fun, quick, must read.

I do not like Jeffrey Deaver's work. However, a family friend of mine surprised me by sending me in which I promised to read without looking at the cover or looking at the top of the pages to see who had written it. Though hard to do, I managed to read two stories without checking who the author was. When I saw it was Deaver, I was shocked. These stories are absolutely wonderful. Though they are mainly mystery/suspense, there's a sort of twilight zone feel to them. I would highly reccomend this to anyone, regardless of what genres they read.

I LOVED this book! What an outstanding collection of stories. I loved this book so much, I made copies of some of the stories so that I could pretend I was working when I was actually reading! Not only did each one surprise me at the end, but all of them held my attention. Very well written, I will add Jeffery Deaver to my favorite authors list and continue to read his work. My absolute favorite story in the collection had to be Triangle, although that is a hard choice given the quality and suspense of each story. I highly recommend this book!

Having proven he is one of the masters of modern suspense novels, Deaver digs into some of his short stories for a pleasing sixteen story collection, with twists galore. Although thematically many of them are very similar (particularly the cheating spouse thing), they are all fun and carry their own distorted twists.WITHOUT JONATHAN - a wife plans to murder husband; THE WEEKENDER - a pharmacy robbery yields unusual results; FOR SERVICES RENDERED - a woman seeks psychiatric help in dealing with her husband's intent to drive her insane; BEAUTIFUL - a woman takes desperate measures to off set a stalker; THE FALL GUY - just who's the fall guy in this one?; EYE TO EYE - a nerd seeks revenge on those who bullied him; TRIANGLE - a man uses a criminologist book to seek justice; ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE when Shakespeare helps out a murderer; GONE FISHING is a real twister with a little girl afraid for her daddy's well being; NOCTURNE is a nifty tale of revenge; LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSE brings justice in a roundabout way; THE BLANK CARD gives a husband reason to suspect his wife's infidelity; THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT is the only new story, a Lincoln Rhyme mystery, with a surprise ending; TOGETHER in which we meet a man with undying devotion; THE WIDOW OF PINE CREEK has a widow seeking help from a handsome stranger to settle her deceasesd husbands business problems; and THE KNEELING SOLDIER finds us again with a stalker and an enterprising young woman.Deaver knows his craft well, and I think you'll find these stories more consistently entertaining than some other novelists who have ventured here.