The human reader

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The Human Reader (in the original The Sleeping Doll ) is a 2007 thriller by the American successful author Jeffery Deaver .

The novel is the first part of a planned series about the Californian detective Kathryn Dance, who already made a brief appearance in The Hounded Watchmaker (original title: The Cold Moon ).

action

The expert in kinesics and interrogation techniques Kathryn Dance is given the task of analyzing the sect leader Daniel Pell, who has been convicted of murder. Although she recognizes its danger and senses an impending crime, he manages to escape from a courthouse shortly afterwards. Two police officers lose their lives. Pell had apparently succeeded in communicating with female followers via the Internet from prison, which ultimately made his escape possible.

Despite an immediate large-scale manhunt, the police do not succeed in catching the escapee. Pell, a master at manipulating people, had managed to turn a young woman into his mindless tool. They hide together in previously rented hotel rooms. With the support of former sect members, who give clues about the preferences and behavior patterns of their former ruler, Dance and an FBI profiler manage to keep track of them.

The police cannot explain why the escapee continues to hide in the area. The exact circumstances of the series of murders a decade ago are still unclear. Eventually it turns out that the basically violence-rejecting Pell himself is involuntarily the instrument of another perpetrator who let him murder for his own interests.

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