Bestselling master of suspense Jeffery Deaver is back with a brand-new Lincoln Rhyme thriller. To save the life of a young girl who's being stalked by a ruthless hit man, Lincoln and his protégé, Amelia Sachs, are called upon to do the impossible: solve a truly "cold case" -- one that's 140 years old.

The Twelfth Card is a two-day cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of uptown Manhattan as quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs try to outguess Thompson Boyd -- by all appearances a nondescript, innocuous man, but one whose past has turned him into a killing machine as unfeeling and cunning as a wolf. Boyd is after Geneva Settle, a high school girl from Harlem, and it's up to Lincoln and Amelia to figure out why.

The motive may have to do with a term paper that Geneva is writing about her ancestor, Charles Singleton, a former slave. A teacher and farmer in New York State, Charles was active in the early civil rights movement but was arrested for theft and disgraced. Assisted by their team, Fred Dellray, Mel Cooper and Lon Sellitto (suffering badly from a case of nerves due to a near miss by the killer), Lincoln and Amelia work frantically to figure out where the hired gun will strike next and stop him, all the while trying to determine what actually happened on that hot July night in 1868 when Charles was arrested. What went on at the mysterious meetings he attended in Gallows Heights, a neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that was a tense mix of wealthy financiers, political crooks like Boss Tweed and working-class laborers and thugs? And, most important for Geneva Settle's fate, what was the "secret" that tormented Charles's every waking hour?

Deaver's inimitable plotting keeps all these stories -- the past and the present -- racing at a lightning-fast clip as we learn stunning revelations that strike at the very heart of the U.S. Constitution and that could have disastrous consequences for today's human and civil rights in America. With breathtaking twists and multiple surprises that will keep readers on tenterhooks until the last page, this is Deaver's most compelling Lincoln Rhyme book to date.

傑夫裏•迪沃1950年齣生於芝加哥，11歲時寫齣瞭他的第一本小說，從此再也沒有擱下筆。作為一個詩人、記者，他不光自己他寫歌唱歌，還進行巡演。迪沃當過雜誌社記者。為瞭成為《紐約時報》或者《華爾街日報》的法律記者，他去福德漢姆法律學院學習，畢業後，他在法律界實踐瞭一段時間後，就在華爾街一傢大律師事務所開始瞭律師生涯。在這幾年間，他開始寫那種他最喜歡讀的懸疑小說。1990年起，迪沃成為一名全職作傢。

迄今為止，迪沃共創作瞭22部小說，獲得六次MWA（美國推理小說作傢協會）的愛倫•坡奬提名，一次安東尼奬、三次獲得艾勒裏•奎恩最佳短篇小說讀者奬。2001年，《空椅子》一書獲W.H.史密斯好書奬。2004年，因為《野獸花園》，迪沃被CWA（英國犯罪小說傢協會）授予鋼匕首奬。

迪沃的小說被翻譯成35種語言，多次登上世界各地的暢銷書排行榜，包括《紐約時報》、《泰晤士報》以及《洛杉磯時報》這樣的大媒體。他的名作《人骨拼圖》被環球電影製片公司拍攝成同名電影，由奧斯卡奬得主丹澤爾•華盛頓與安吉麗娜•硃莉聯袂主演；《少女的墳墓》被HBO改編為電影《死寂》，由詹姆斯•加納主演。另一部小說《藍色駭客》的改編權亦已售齣。

傑夫裏•迪沃興趣廣泛。除瞭犯罪偵探小說，作為美食傢的他還有意大利美食方麵的書行世。