Stone Monkey by Jeffery Deaver

 Still playing catch up posting my 2022 reads onto this blog.  So my write up will be brief because too many books to add,  I read this in August 2022 although it was published in 2002, 548 pages paperback, I scooped it at a book sale.  Good books and good reading stand the test of years and Deaver's novels are usually worth reading at anytime for the suspense. This is an excellent intrigue  featuring forensics expert Lincoln Rhyme and his protégé and assistant,  Amelia..  This is a twister that  surprised me when Amelia is surprisingly drawn into the deceptive web of the Ghost whom they must capture. It was a bit slow starting out as it sets the stage about the Chinese smuggler of humans into the US.  The other concurrent question through the book is to learn whether or not Rhyme will go through with the surgery that might ease his quadriplegic state or might not.  It is a  risky  surgery.  By  page 111 we learn that the Ghost is so able to vanish partially because he has government contacts on his payoff schemes, adding to his veil of protection and making his capture more elusive and more dangerous.  While Amelia and Deaver strive to protect the Changs whom the Ghost is seeking as  witness to his crimes. 

 Sunny Li is a former detective police officer from China also seeking the Ghost against odds.  Rhymes decides to allow him to work with them at Amelia's urging.  Pages 330-331 are amusing as Li teaches Rhyme the Chinese strategy game of wei-chi.. .   

The ending is suspense as the elder Chang maneuvers and tricks his son and all  goes to kill the Ghost.  Will they get there in time to rescue him?   a 5 ***** read.