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It is a simultaneous blessing and curse that more people have probably seen the film adaptation of Jeffery Deaver's novel A MAIDEN'S GRAVE than have read the book. This is not unusual; in a less harried age viewers would, I think, be more likely to seek out the novel that was the subject matter of the "Based on the novel" tag that would come appended to the beginning, or end, of a film they enjoyed. This is unfortunate; while A MAIDEN'S GRAVE was a fine film adaptation, there is nothing that can compare to climbing into the lounge chair, cracking the binding on this book, and then restricting movement for the next several hours to the eye, the, hand, and the mind.
A MAIDEN'S GRAVE and PRAYING FOR SLEEP are the two novels that really, really "did it" for Deaver; they set the tone for his later books, particularly the Lincoln Rhyme novels, which have brought him the fame, fortune and notoriety that he so long deserved and that was so late in forthcoming. THE MAIDEN'S GRAVE tells a story over the course of 400-plus pages (in the mass market paperback edition) and a little over 18 hours that contains all of those elements that make a Deaver book a DEAVER BOOK: sleights of hand, plot twists, and a suspense level that is ratcheted upward every page or two.
Oh, one other thing. Deaver has become well known for building his novels around topics that you want to know more about but have never had the time to delve into. The Man very kindly does the research for you and drops factoids here and there, but never gratuitously. So it is that when, in A MAIDEN'S GRAVE, a school bus carrying students from a school for the hearing impaired is hijacked by a trio of murderous escaped convicts, the reader learns much more than sign language. There are some pretty ferocious political and cultural differences within the hearing-impaired community, and even some class differences based on impairment etiology. Deaver does a masterful job of bringing these out within the subtext of his story, and making them matter as his story unfolds, without tearing and straining at the plot fabric. That one fact alone would make A MAIDEN'S GRAVE a masterful work.
But...but...there is a lot more to this novel than the hearing-impaired subtext. When it is learned that the bus has been hijacked, and the students kidnapped and held hostage, the politics involved in the containing and resolving of the situation have enough plot lines for an entirely separate novel. Arthur Potter is the FBI's very best point man in the area of hostage negotiation. Potter approaches every hostage situation as a homicide in progress; those responsible must be apprehended and the damage contained. The jurisdictional disputes among federal, state, and local authorities, even when the line of authority is at least theoretically clear, function more to endanger rather than protect the hostages.
What is so remarkable, however, is Deaver's ability, in the midst of jurisdictional chaos, to plausibly create an improbable love affair from afar between Potter and Melanie Charrol. Charrol is a teacher of the hearing-impaired, and one of the hostages. Though she and Potter have never met, and have seen each other only from a fleeting distance, they begin, incredibly, to work together to resolve the situation and to save themselves --- and each other. The result is a tale of suspense and, yes, romance, that is somehow rendered believable. I doubt that anyone but Deaver could ever carry it off.
Whether you have seen the film version of A MAIDEN'S GRAVE on HBO or not, the novel, and the reading experience, are not to missed. It is a work to be read, reread, and shared.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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