Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance, #2)

Aug 16, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, guy-lit, suspense-thriller

Roadside crosses. Roadside memorials. Those crosses along the highway. Those sad and forlorn images at the side of the road marking the places where sudden and unexpected deaths happened. Places where the person was last seen alive. Places where parents went to in the middle of the night or in the wee hours of the morning after receiving a call from the police. Where they shed tears. Where dreams ended.

Jeffery Deaver (born 1950) is an American mystery/crime writer. He is a journalist, novelist...more Roadside crosses. Roadside memorials. Those crosses along the highway. Those sad and forlorn images at the side of the road marking the places where sudden and unexpected deaths happened. Places where the person was last seen alive. Places where parents went to in the middle of the night or in the wee hours of the morning after receiving a call from the police. Where they shed tears. Where dreams ended.

Jeffery Deaver (born 1950) is an American mystery/crime writer. He is a journalist, novelist and a practicing lawyer. Many of his books promote “lateral thinking” that is a way to solve problems using an indirect and creative approach using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. Compared with “critical thinking” that is primarily concerned with judging the true value of statements and seeking errors, lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person who thinks laterally moves from one unknown idea to create a new idea. The term “lateral thinking” was coined by Edward de Bono (born 1933) in his book New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking published in 1967. Three Deaver’s novels have been turned into films: The Bone Collector (1999), A Maiden’s Grave as the TV film Dead Silence (1997) and The Devil’s Teardrop in 2010, another TV film.

Deaver made use of both “roadside crosses” and “lateral thinking” in this book, Roadside Crosses (published 2009), the second novel in his Kathryn Dance series. Kathryn Dance is an agent with the California Bureau of Investigation, which is similar to that of the FBI. She’s a young widow of a former FBI agent and the mother of two children, Wes and Maggie. She is an expert of Kinesis or body language and in interrogation and interviewing witnesses and suspects.

In this book, Detective Dance and his deputy Michael O’Neil are tasked to solve the killings associated with roadside crosses along the road in Monterey Peninsula. The roadside crosses are clues on the killing as they bear the date after it is installed. In other words, if the duo see the cross today, the killing will happen tomorrow because it has a date on when the killer intend to kill. The killer even has a style: he kills his victim based on the details the victim carelessly posted in blogs and other social networking websites, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc. For example, if the victim wrote in his blog that he has a phobia on snakes, then the killer will have an anaconda swallow the person until he dies. These are the two unique ingredients of this book’s milleau: the crosses and the blogs and Deaver effectively used both to engage his readers. The plot is a typical whodunit but it is hard to second-guess Deaver and it is definitely impossible to be two steps ahead of him in the game. In other words, you may be able to say that oh, I knew that was coming if you are just a paragraph ahead of the revelation but it is impossible to predict what will happen at the end if you are just in the middle of the book.

The moral lesson of the book is not the usual don’t drink and drive which is more often than not the reason why you have those roadside crosses. Rather, it is to be careful in sharing personal things about yourself in the cyberspace. You just don’t know how some screwed and loony people could use those against you or your loved ones. Oh well, my reviews tend to be personal and I oftentimes share personal events but I am not using our real and complete names and I am no longer using my real picture. Even my birthday is already hidden. No, Joyzi, I have no criminal record at the NBI or something. I am just being careful and I hope that everyone will do the same.(less)

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May 02, 2011 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller

Jeffrey Deaver's ROADSIDE CROSSES is the first of the Deaver books that has not kept my attention. I found that it wasn’t as captivating as I thought it would be. I know the area where the story took place having spent much of my life in the Salinas/Monterey/Carmel area. I enjoyed listening to the descriptions of the region but the characters seemed shallow and did not captivate me. I was particularly bothered by the way that Kathryn Dance’s relationship with her mother was treated. That piece s...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Christine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-reads

As with most Jeffrey Deaver books that educate readers about a certain topic (i.e. how electricity works, what dirt is composed of), Roadside Crosses also attempts to teach, in this case, a myriad of topics about the computer and the internet. Deaver covers blogging, virtual reality gaming, erasing and restoring hard drives, tracking IP addresses and a whole lot of other computer-based subjects, some much better than others. However, where this book FAILED for me was that Katherine Dance, whom I...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cops, crime, forensics, plot-twist

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 19, 2012 Mark O'Neill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, crime, thriller, murder, detective, usa, california, internet, blog

Agent Kathryn Dance returns as an investigator for the California Bureau of Investigation after her last outing in the Sleeping Doll. This time, she starts to investigate after roadside crosses start to appear for murders that haven't happened yet.[return][return]It seems that the killer is taunting them by telling them the date of the next victim but obviously not where it will take place. So they know the clock is ticking until the next victim but they are powerless to stop it. Their investiga...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Patrick Ellard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roadside Crosses is the second entry into the Kathryn Dance series of books, a character that originally appeared in a Lincoln Rhyme novel and was a character who Jeffrey Deaver decided was worthy of her own series.

The plot tells the story of a killer who leaves roadside crosses on the side of the road signifying when a person will be killed. It turns out that people are being targeted due to comments they have written on an online blog. It's up to Dance and her team as well as a computer expert...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Dave Freas rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was not as good as the first in the series--too much about MMORPGs and blogging and not enough of Kathryn Dance plying her specialty (kinesics - the reading of body language).

The main plot was also diluted by sub-plots (one about Kathryn's mother and one about a sneaky investigator) that thinned further a plot already thinned by the digressions into MMORPGs and blogging mentioned above. Both were werapped up a little too quickly and neatly. The one involving Kathryn's mother could have...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Joy rated it 2 of 5 stars

"The Monterey Peninsula is rocked when a killer begins to leave roadside crosses beside local highways - not in memoriam, but as announcements of his intention to kill. And to kill in particularly horrific and efficient ways: using the personal details about the victims that they've carelessly posted in blogs and on social networking websites." "The case lands on the desk of Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation's foremost kinesics - body language-expert. She and Deputy Michael O...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Peter Clothier rated it 1 of 5 stars

It felt like time for some light reading, and my favorite light reading is the crime novel. So I picked up a Jeffrey Deaver hardback from a used book stand for a couple of dollars--and was glad I hadn't forked out more. I first encountered Deaver a few years ago through The Bone Collector, with its appealing quadriplegic forensic genius Lincoln Rhyme (marvelously played in a film version by Denzel Washington.) I sped through the book, as I have done other books by Deaver since, with considerable...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Joan Reeves rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: joan-s-keeper-shelf, mystery-thriller

Techno Savvy Thriller

Just let me say that I've been a fan of Mr. Deaver's books since The Blue Nowhere, still one of my favorite books.

Mr. Deaver is a former journalist and lawyer. His bio says he's also a former folk singer. (Was there anyone who was a teen in the 60s who didn't fancy a career as the next Peter, Paul, or Mary?). His books have hit the best seller lists around the world, and he's a perennially nominated author and winner of the awards that honor his type of books.

Again, Mr. Deav...more Techno Savvy Thriller

Just let me say that I've been a fan of Mr. Deaver's books since The Blue Nowhere, still one of my favorite books.

Mr. Deaver is a former journalist and lawyer. His bio says he's also a former folk singer. (Was there anyone who was a teen in the 60s who didn't fancy a career as the next Peter, Paul, or Mary?). His books have hit the best seller lists around the world, and he's a perennially nominated author and winner of the awards that honor his type of books.

Again, Mr. Deaver explores our emerging technological environment that's changing the way we work and spend our leisure time. This book is all about the synthetic world that some perceive as more real than true reality. Most of you know about Second Life, now the Internet's largest user-created, 3D virtual world community. That's synthetic life.

You've all seen those Roadside Crosses that dot the landscape. Sometimes you probably wondered what happened at a shrine dotted with dead flowers and a weather-bedraggled teddy bear. In Mr. Deaver's latest book, an entry in the Kathryn Dance series, roadside crosses start appearing, and then a murder is committed at that site within the next few days. How creepy is that?

Heroine Kathryn Dance of the California Bureau of Investigation, an organization most of America is now familiar with thanks to TVs The Mentalist, finds herself wading into the world of social networking and blogs to find the truth. I don't want to spoil the read if you haven't picked up this gripping tale yet. Suffice it to say that you'll find yourself nodding in agreement as Dance discovers how addictive and invasive technology has become.

One thing I like is that Mr. Deaver writes good women characters who are strong and smart. None of the running women who twist an ankle and fall so the villain can capture, torment, and kill. Intelligent, in other words, like the women I know. Be warned. This is one of those that will make you stay awake turning pages.

You won't be disappointed by this techno-savvy thriller, and you may well be surprised by the final twist. (less)

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Mar 14, 2012 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jeffery Deaver- Roadside Crosses (Pocket Books 2010) 3 Stars

When crosses start appearing in Monterey Peninsula with future dates on them, people are suddenly being brutally executed nearby. Now it is up to CBI agent Dance to put an end to this killing spree, even though her mother has been arrested for a mercy killing at the hospital. It looks like this all could be the result of a blog, which leads her to believe that these killings may be the result of cyberbullying pushing a young boy over th...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roadside Crosses is the second novel in Deaver's newer Kathryn Dance series. Always a huge fan of Jeffery Deaver, especially his Lincoln Rhyme series, I'm proud and excited to say I strongly favor his Kathryn Dance series more.

Kathryn Dance is an expert in kinesics, which is the study and analysis of body language. In addition to the contribution kinesics makes to the mystery in the novel at hand, it's interesting to learn about body language techniques since we can apply them to real life situa...more Roadside Crosses is the second novel in Deaver's newer Kathryn Dance series. Always a huge fan of Jeffery Deaver, especially his Lincoln Rhyme series, I'm proud and excited to say I strongly favor his Kathryn Dance series more.

Kathryn Dance is an expert in kinesics, which is the study and analysis of body language. In addition to the contribution kinesics makes to the mystery in the novel at hand, it's interesting to learn about body language techniques since we can apply them to real life situations we face daily. Learning about crime forensics is fun too, but I highly doubt I'll be analyzing hair fibres from a shirt found on a piece of tape found at the crime scene of a murder anytime soon.

In Roadside Crosses, a killer begins to leave shrewd crosses at random locations along the Monterey Peninsula to signify memorials where murders and accidents have yet to occur. The murderer then stages horrific crimes modeled after each victim's fears that can publicly be found online in forums, blogs, and various other social media outlets where profiles and information has been posted carelessly for all to see.

Roadside Crosses is full of Deaver's usual red herrings and twists with added subplots that deal with the ongoing cast of characters. Deaver adds an author's note to the beginning of the novel challenging readers to visit websites listed throughout the book to follow along and help with solving the mystery.

For readers longing for a romantic subplot to accompany the novel's action and suspense, Deaver has a slow building up of sexual tension developing between Kathryn Dance and her bureau partner Michael O'Neil, of which I'm hoping a relationship will eventually come to fruition in future installments.

I particularly enjoy Roadside Crosses because it really does confront the accountability people lack in present days regarding posting their personal business on social networking sites for all to see. Tsk tsk tsk. Thanks for letting us know you're going to the gym at 8pm on a dark, rainy Tuesday night so we can ransack your house. Okay so maybe I won't, but someone else will. Think about it.

The first novel in the Kathryn Dance series is The Sleeping Doll (2007). The newest release from the Lincoln Rhyme series is The Burning Wire (2010).

Read more book reviews at http://dreamworldbooks.com.(less)

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Jan 15, 2011 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ipad

Plenty of others have already supplied a description of the book, so I won't do that. All I will do is tell you that that Roadside Crosses, the second in Deaver's Kathryn Dance series, is almost impossible to put down. But that's probably more true if you have an interest in or follow the minutiae of how the entire blogging community works — and the power that it has, particularly for vulnerable young people. Much of the novel's core storyline hinges on that, but even if all things tech summon l...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Michelle O'flynn rated it 5 of 5 stars

The second story in the Kathryn Dance series, and it's a winner. I was quite taken by her character when introduced ina Lincoln Rhyme edition, and delighted to find her in her own element and series. This is even better than the first, and while we are familiar with some of Dance's co-workers, we are getting to know them even better....including the relationship she has with a colleague in the Sheriff's Office Mike O'Neil.

The plot is racey, plenty of surprises and suspense, but fortunately the h...more

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Sep 08, 2010 Jennie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, thriller, trashed-it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book was good for some fluffy beach (ok, rainy day on the couch) reading. Interesting concept, with the killer leaving crosses to announce an attack, interesting main character.

The story falls short of being interesting when Deaver takes time out to explain blogs and online role-playing games as if this were 1997 and no one had heard of them. I am willing to suspend disbelief, but for a 40-something(?) law enforcement agent (with a website of her own) in 2009 to need long, drawn out explan...more This book was good for some fluffy beach (ok, rainy day on the couch) reading. Interesting concept, with the killer leaving crosses to announce an attack, interesting main character.

The story falls short of being interesting when Deaver takes time out to explain blogs and online role-playing games as if this were 1997 and no one had heard of them. I am willing to suspend disbelief, but for a 40-something(?) law enforcement agent (with a website of her own) in 2009 to need long, drawn out explanations of this here interweb thingy pushes credibility a little far. Also, we are encouraged to check out any URLs we "happen" to come across in the book (yes, it actually says "happen" to come across even though they're front and center, in italics, and kind of hard to miss). Yay for interactive stuff, but I really don't want to get off my comfy couch and pull out my computer in the middle of a book to go check out a fake blog - or any blog, really. I didn't really get that. After awhile the URL insertions seemed a little desperate.

The "suspense" got old after the first two times Deaver pulled the M Knight Shayamalan so-desperate-for-you-to-believe-this-but-it's-really-this act. It started to feel like "Gotcha! Right? Right? RIGHT? RIGHT? Until I just started thinking "the police got there just in time. Oh! Look! They got there just in time! Again! Again! Ag-oh, that one's dead, oh - that one too - Just in time! Again! Again! Yawn.

One last tiny, nitpicky thing: In the "About the Author" section of the book, Deaver's many accolades are listed, as well as his former careers. Nowhere does it say he has spent much time around law enforcement agents (and I didn't care enough to research him further). My point is this: I have police officers in the family. I worked with police officers. I have friends who are police officers. I've been in several roll calls, and on several ride-alongs. I did an unscientific survey of my police officer family and acquaintances, and the results are in: not once have I heard, nor have they ever used, nor have they heard their colleagues use, "perp". "Suspect" or "subject", yes. "Perp"? TV. 500 pages of "perp" starts to sound like nails on a chalkboard, even in my own head. Stop it!

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Jul 04, 2010 Jerry rated it 2 of 5 stars

Disappointing Kathryn Dance sequel -- little mystery, way too much blogging

We thoroughly enjoyed Deaver's new character Kathyrn Dance, a specialist in kinesics (body language), who helped solve the mystery in the author's Lincoln Rhyme novel "Cold Moon". She then "starred" in her own first complete story, "Sleeping Doll", which we found highly entertaining. Unfortunately, the author missed the mark completely in "Crosses", her third appearance, and this time again in charge of an investigation a...more

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Apr 05, 2010 Schnaucl rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: april, fiction, library, mystery_crime, read_2010, series

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Two and a half stars, really.

I had a lot of problems with this book.

It's been a while since I had a problem with excessive use of the word "like" but I still remember how it was used, and it was definitely not the way Deaver used it. He often has teens using it as the first word in a sentence and that's just not correct.

His use of the term "synthetic world" bothered me. It's technically correct, but no one I know calls it that. It's on-line or cyberspace not "synthetic world."

I don't think most...more Two and a half stars, really.

I had a lot of problems with this book.

It's been a while since I had a problem with excessive use of the word "like" but I still remember how it was used, and it was definitely not the way Deaver used it. He often has teens using it as the first word in a sentence and that's just not correct.

His use of the term "synthetic world" bothered me. It's technically correct, but no one I know calls it that. It's on-line or cyberspace not "synthetic world."

I don't think most teenagers would follow a local political blog and I can't see the ones who would be interested in that sort of thing using "l33t" all the time. Reading the thread on the blog was just painful. It's the kind of thing I'd have skipped entirely if I were reading a thread on-line.

I think it's rare that people can't distinguish between their on-line and off-line lives. They might prefer their on-line life, but Deaver made it sound as though they thought it was more real and I don't think that's accurate for most people.

I also didn't understand the skepticism that an on-line friend could turn into an off-line friend. I think that's a common experience for the vast majority of people who have spent significant time on-line.

And there was the usual stereotype that only geeks/nerds/social outcasts/losers play MMORPGs although I did like that they were able to use his on-line persona to figure out something about his personality, of course, many people play characters that are nothing at all like their real personalities and plenty of people who would never hurt anyone in real life have no trouble playing violent video games. So while I'm glad it wasn't playing MMORPGs and/or violent video games makes one into a killer/more willing to do harm there were still some problematic elements.

Dance's obvious romantic interest in her married partner made me really uncomfortable. I don't care if she doesn't like his wife and doesn't think she's a good mother. As far as she knew it was a happy marriage and emotional infidelity is just plain wrong. Now that he and his wife are separating/divorcing, fine. But that didn't happen until the very end of the book so the rest of the time it just made me uncomfortable and dislike the protagonist.

I find the kinesics stuff fascinating, but she was talking to the killer how many times and never picked up that he was guilty?

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Aug 24, 2009 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who likes a good puzzle/mystery, California, on-line computer games.

Recommended to Richard by: I read all of Mr. Deaver's work.

There is so much going on in this book and it is very satisfying on many levels. Jeffrey Deaver, yet another retired attorney, lays out a very complicated plot and keeps it all finely balanced to the real end. I lost count of the false trails and conclusions he leads us on.

Mr. Deaver, who has also created over 25 other novels featuring quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs or California Bureau of Investigation kinesics expert Kathryn Dance and Monterey County Sheriff's office d...more

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Jul 26, 2009 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dance, an agent with the California Bureau of Investigation, gets an eye-opening education in some of the hottest areas of the cyberworld. After an auto accident kills two teens, vicious smears of Travis Brigham, the teen driver deemed responsible but not charged in the accident, appear on the Chilton Report, a popular blog. After one of the accusing bloggers barely survives an assault, Brigham becomes a person of interest. Brigham disappears, and attacks, each preceded by a crude roadside cross...more

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Jul 07, 2009 stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, mystery

damn you, deaver! you were my gold standard for research, and you failed me. not on everything - but you failed me nonetheless. my heart broke a little each time you got something wrong. where was your map? why do you refuse to say that pebble beach exists? you do know carmel valley isn't carmel which isn't carmel by the sea, right? the name of the hospital! the highways! ACK.

of course, some things he got right. which made me happy.

longer review later but: kathryn dance book, picks up with a L...more

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Jul 06, 2009 Chuck rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jeffery Deaver was "CSI" before the series was invented, one of the first novelists (along with Patricia Cornwell) to emphasize crime scene investigation to solve crimes. His best known "detective" is Lincoln Rhyme; movie fans will know Rhyme as Denzel Washington (playing opposite a young Angelina Jolie). This novel is a "series spinoff," following the work of Katherine Dance, a California Bureau of Investigation detective whose specialty is kinesics, the science of understanding whether people...more Jeffery Deaver was "CSI" before the series was invented, one of the first novelists (along with Patricia Cornwell) to emphasize crime scene investigation to solve crimes. His best known "detective" is Lincoln Rhyme; movie fans will know Rhyme as Denzel Washington (playing opposite a young Angelina Jolie). This novel is a "series spinoff," following the work of Katherine Dance, a California Bureau of Investigation detective whose specialty is kinesics, the science of understanding whether people are telling the truth by reading their body language. Dance was introduced in the Lincoln Rhyme novel 'Cold Moon.'

The creation of Dance was, I think, a smart choice for Deaver. As interesting as the Rhyme series is, an author can get stuck, grow predictable and, especially since "CSI," can grow stale describing the painstaking examination of a crime scene (the series is parodied good naturedly in Roadside Crosses, BTW). And Dance is an atypical detective--a mom, a daughter, living in the town she grew up in, the antithesis of the 'loner rootless detective' that is one of the mainstays of American crime fiction.

This complicated plot can be summarized thus. A killer, for reasons unknown, is leaving crosses commemorating people's deaths by the side of the road, but is leaving them prior to the date of the killing. Suspicion turns to a 17 year old boy who has been cyberbullied in a blog called 'The Chilton Report,' which is run by a man who seems to be a responsible journalist but whose readers spout vitriol about people who often aren't even mentioned in the blog. Who is the 'Roadside Cross' killer? What are his or her motives? Who is he or she trying to kill? An side plot comes when Dance's nurse mother, Edie, is prosecuted for the mercy killing of a California Highway Patrol officer.

The novel is a fascinating exploration of the way news has changed since online news outlets and blogs became and acceptable form of news. Who is responsible for content? If the net is unregulated, can people be held for posting scathing comments, often anonymously. What can happen when people, acting on false information, "gang up" on someone, accusing her or him of awful things? How can someone like a teenage boy defend himself from such attacks? Recover from such attacks? Restore his reputation after such attacks? Factor in that so many people reveal so much about themselves online, especially to "friends" on online social networking sites, and you have a very plausible series of murders waiting to happen.

This is also one of the least bloody and violent mystery/detective novels I've read in a long time. In an age when CSI and NCIS has anesthetized us to dead bodies, autopsies, and blood, it's nice to read a thriller that's gripping and yet not gory.

I give the book three stars, which may be unfair, because I'm comparing it to Deaver's other books. If you look at say, Cold Moon, or Garden of Bears (not one of Deaver's series books but, in my opinion, as good a piece of historical fiction as has been written in the last ten years), Roadside Crosses is OK but is not at the top of the Deaver canon. Great characters (Dance is admirable and fun to "be around" as a reader), fascinating situation, plot that is fairly unpredictable and yet the author "plays fair" by "setting up" the twists that come. But the plot is a bit too complicated. There are too many rescues at the last minute--there are at least ten sections where a character seems to be facing death, and each is rescued (save one, a minor character we meet only once whose main job seems to be to serve as corpse). Nine out of ten rescues--a bit predictable. There are also so many characters that even a good mystery reader can't keep them all straight.

Overall, a book worth reading--entertaining and diverting. Not one of Deaver's best, but still quite worthwhile. And thanks to my 3-year old, Benjamin, for giving me this book for Father's Day! Love ya, buddy!

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Nov 25, 2012 Ami rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: detective-mystery-thriller

3.5 stars
Kathryn Dance was first introduced in Lincoln Rhyme's series -- and I liked the first Dance book enough that I bought this one back when it was first released in 2009. However, I wasn't able to really sit down and read until today.

The crime in this book was a bit unsettling for me. Why? Because it was related to cyberbullying -- how the posts and comments in online blogs could take lives of their own, becoming more viscious and more outlandish. How people could came up with over-the-to...more 3.5 stars
Kathryn Dance was first introduced in Lincoln Rhyme's series -- and I liked the first Dance book enough that I bought this one back when it was first released in 2009. However, I wasn't able to really sit down and read until today.

The crime in this book was a bit unsettling for me. Why? Because it was related to cyberbullying -- how the posts and comments in online blogs could take lives of their own, becoming more viscious and more outlandish. How people could came up with over-the-top lies that could destroy innocent lives.

If I read this one back in 2009, I probably wouldn't be too upset about it -- I didn't really notice such thing back then. I was just joining Goodreads for about a year, wasn't too involved with Twitter as well. However, for the past year, I witnessed how it could happen easily -- what with the attacks against reviewers, the horrible comments that happen here in Goodreads from both reviewers and authors and friends of authors. It was troubling -- and reading this book just brought that back. How fragile our lives are online.

So all throughout the book, I got that image in the back of my mind. When Mr. Deaver presented the twist (view spoiler), all I wanted was for the character to survive.

As always, Mr. Deaver's writing could be very technical -- and he was doing it here too, with the talks about computer and MMORPG and synth world. I didn't have any problem with that, though. It wasn't as complicated and technical as his Lincoln Rhyme's series.

Characters wise, I wasn't really warming up to Dance, even after two books. I guess my issue with her was that unlike Rhyme, Dance's strength was more in observation. She was a kinesic expert while Rhyme was a forensic expert. Dance wasn't moving as fast in cases, because she needed to study the people. While Rhyme could analyze crime scene and forensic evidences to track the perp. Also, I wasn't really sure on the way of the two men that seemed to be in Dance's love live in this book: Michael O'Neill and Jonathan Boling.

Having said that, I think I would like to check book #3 in this series -- especially since that one was released this year.

PS: Just a note, again Indonesia (my country) was portrayed as terrorist because we are the biggest Islamic country. I could really do nothing about perceptions from foreign countries about my country, but still, I get annoyed with this portrayal whenever I stumble upon it. I guess I can imagine what the people from Russia/Eastern Europe feels about the portrayal of their countries back during Cold War *sigh*(less)

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Jul 21, 2009 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Most of us have probably seen at least a few "roadside crosses" along some highway, memorializing the individual who died at that spot in of a car accident. In Jeffrey Deaver's latest book: Roadside Crosses, home made crosses start appearing along a California highway with no name on them, but with a date in to the future, as a killer announces his intention to kill. Even more disturbing is the fact that the killer seems to be using personal information obtained through blog posts, and other soc...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Hud-c rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: detective, crime, suspense, reviewed

Its 3.25 stars.

This is my first time reading a Jeffrey Deaver's work. Road Crosses is the second of the Katherine Dance series. It was out of whim that I picked this up. I was curious about the concept of cyberbullying and blogging and how it could have a far-reaching effect on people even if it only exist in the virtual world. This book gives us a lesson that words are really powerful - when use to perpetuate lies - it can turn around the lives of ordinary people and worst, it can even fully de...more

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Sep 03, 2009 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Deaver has created a fascinating protagonist in Kathryn Dance, an officer in the California Bureau of Investigation. In this book, Dance is torn between dealing with a serial killer case and her mother's arrest on charges of murder.

The serial killer case focuses on commenters in a fictional blog, "The Chilton Report." The murder charges relate to actions in the previous Kathryn Dance novel, in which a police officer is seriously burned in the line of duty. The officer dies at the hospital where...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Daniel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a nice diversion - the kind of book that you can read through at a quick clip, skipping the nonessentials to reach the plot points that have been disconnected in suspense-generating ways. The story was one of crime, and the characters who unraveled it were, if not of depth, at least as human as their limited portraits allowed.

Criticisms that came to light while walking the dog, hours after closing the book:

--The advertised "twists" - apparently a Deaver trademark - were really bait-and-...more

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May 08, 2010 Kristin rated it 3 of 5 stars

My mother's favorite book of all time is Deaver's 'The Bone Collector', and she has read many books, so I had high expectations of Deaver when I read this book, my first of his. Unfortunately, this book didn't really live up to them.
Roadside crosses are common around here, as there are many car accidents, especially involving young people, so I thought it might parallel what I know in real life. Instead, the crosses played a fairly minor role in the book, that I don't really think it earned the...more

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Sep 02, 2009 Caitlin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

Jeffrey Deaver is another big favorite of mine. He's prolific, but he always delivers a quality page-turning thriller. He's got several series going, most famously the Lincoln Rhyme novels, but this is the second book in a new series of novels featuring California Bureau of Investigations agent Kathryn Dance. Where Lincoln Rhyme is interesting because he is a highly intelligent & driven forensic scientist who happens to be a quadriplegic, Kathryn Dance is interesting because she's an expert...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Kellie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-reads, mystery-thrillers, kathryn-dance-series, series

#2 of the Katherine Dahl series-First, I still think Deaver is one of the best thriller/mystery writers out there. I enjoyed the computer game/blog theme in this book. It is very interesting. Deaver obviously does a great deal of research for his books and I always learn something when I read them. This book was definitely full of the twists and turns Deaver is known for. It will keep me reading into the night because I can’t put it down. I enjoy the Katherine Daul series. I’m beginning to like...more

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May 01, 2012 Rebekah Scott rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

Everyone has seen them - roadside memorials for accident victims, certain stretches of dangerous road with numerous crosses and signs commemorating the loss of a loved one. But this time, when a small handmade cross appears on the side of the highway, it doesn’t represent a life that has been cut short, but one that soon will be.

California Bureau of Investigation agent Kathryn Dance, an expert on kinesics (body language), is sent to interview the teenage girl who survived the attack, and it soon...more Everyone has seen them - roadside memorials for accident victims, certain stretches of dangerous road with numerous crosses and signs commemorating the loss of a loved one. But this time, when a small handmade cross appears on the side of the highway, it doesn’t represent a life that has been cut short, but one that soon will be.

California Bureau of Investigation agent Kathryn Dance, an expert on kinesics (body language), is sent to interview the teenage girl who survived the attack, and it soon becomes apparent that the young victim knows more about her attacker than she is saying. Following the clues, Dance is led to a report on a website about a recent accident that took the lives of two local teenage girls, and she is disturbed by the brutality of the user comments attacking the boy who was driving the car. Considered an outcast by his peers, Travis Brigham is a likely suspect for the attack, seemingly acting in retribution for an accusation against him posted online. Dance quickly locates Travis, but is unable to do anything but briefly question him before he vanishes.

When another cross appears, and this victim also condemned Travis on the internet, Dance must work rapidly to identify other possible targets of Travis’s rage as the allegations and rumors being posted about him grow more outrageous and vicious by the minute. But just as the anonymous screen names conceal the identities of the users, the tragedy of Travis’s circumstances hides a deeper and darker story.

“Roadside Crosses” also contains a subplot that carries over from Deaver’s previous Kathryn Dance book, “The Sleeping Doll.” At the end of that book, a severely burned police officer is revealed to be the victim of what appears to be a mercy killing, and in “Roadside Crosses,” Dance is shocked when her own mother, a registered nurse at the hospital where the officer died, is arrested for his murder. Unable to get involved in the investigation, Dance can only watch in frustration as her mother is vilified by an overzealous prosecutor and condemned by protestors.

Jeffery Deaver’s books have always kept me on the edge of my seat, and his latest is no exception. “Roadside Crosses” is another page turner from a master of suspense and misdirection who doesn’t reveal the hoops until he’s already pulled you through them. Deaver skillfully guides his readers through a carefully and tightly plotted mystery that should satisfy any fan of the genre.
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Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance #2)

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