Now the awe-inspiring duo returns in The Stone Monkey. Recruited to help the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service perform the nearly impossible, Lincoln and Amelia manage to track down a cargo ship headed for New York City and carrying two dozen illegal Chinese immigrants, as well as the notorious human smuggler and killer known as « the Ghost. » But when the Ghost’s capture goes disastrously wrong, Lincoln and Amelia find themselves in a race against time: to stop the Ghost before he can track down and murder the two surviving families who have escaped from the ship and vanished deep into the labyrinthine world of New York City’s Chinatown. Over the next harrowing forty-eight hours, the Ghost brilliantly and ruthlessly hunts for the families, while Rhyme, aided by a quirky policeman from mainland China, struggles to find them before they die, and Amelia Sachs pursues a very different kind of police work — forming a connection with one of the immigrants that may have consequences going to the core of her relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme. The Stone Monkey abounds with Deaver’s famous trademarks: wholly unexpected plot twists, breakneck pacing, and characters who are heartbreakingly real, reminding us once again why People hailed him as « the master of ticking-bomb suspense » and Publishers Weekly called him the « most clever plotter on the planet. »