Kathryn Dance Books In Order

Publication Order of Kathryn Dance Books

The Kathryn Dance series is the latest series of novels written by the award winning American author Jeffery Deaver. The series consists of a total of four novels published from 2007 to 2015 and based on the mystery and crime fiction genres. Each novel of the series depicts the central character of Kathryn Dance as a Special Agent in the Central Bureau of Investigation of the state of California. Kathryn had made her first appearance in the novel The Cold Moon of the Lincoln Rhyme series written by Jeffery Deaver. She was introduced as a team member to agent, Lincoln Rhyme to solve the crimes in the city. Apart from the four novels published, the author is about to release the fifth one anytime soon and continues to write some more novels in the series along with his other successful novel series’. The first novel of the series was published in the year 2007 by the Hodder & Stoughton publishing house under the title ‘The Sleeping Doll’. The novel is set in California, United States and introduces the central characters Kathryn Dance and Daniel Pell. Kathryn appears as a Special Agent in the Central Bureau of Investigation, California with the expert skills of Kinesics and interrogation. The plot of the novels opens up with Kathryn Dance being appointed as the interrogator of Daniel Pell, who is convicted of killing many people. He is better known as the Son of Manson as he was accused of using the killing techniques of the notorious killer Charles Manson during the 1960’s, to commit the crime.

Kathryn seems to be intrigued to investigate the murders. Daniel is serving a life sentence for his previous crime of murdering the rich Croyton family brutally. When a new murder case is unearthed, Kathryn is sent to interrogate him in the prison. The crime that he had committed earlier in Carmell had a survivor in the form of one of the daughters of the Croyton family. Daniel and his gang members were not aware of this fact while killing the Croyton family as they were a bit sloppy in their work. The youngest daughter of the family was hiding under the bed behind her toys because of which Daniel and his members were not able to find her. The girl is now termed as the Sleeping Doll as she never opened her mouth about the crime and also about the mastermind, Daniel Pell. He has always been unrepentant about his crimes and so Kathryn was appointed to interrogate him because she had special skills as an interrogator. When Daniel was being transported to Monterey County Courthouse from the Capitola prison for the interrogation, Kathryn sees it as an opportunity to bring out the truth about his involvement in the recent crime. She tries to study the criminal mind of Daniel and his special mind controlling skills with the help of which he forces normal people to commit crimes they would never do otherwise.

Kathryn uses all her special skill of Kinesics and interrogation to make him speak the truth. However, Daniel manages to dodge her and escape with a trail of injured and dead people. Seeing that her plan had failed, Kathryn decides to catch him on her own and begins her charge as the first manhunt of her career. Daniel flees to his pursuers and other innocent people to commit more crimes. As the town of Monterey gets paralyzed by the frightening killer, Kathryn decides to investigate the past life of Daniel to search for any clue. She confronts the Sleeping Doll, who had become a teenager by then and tries to get the truth from her. She also arranges for a little get together of the three women who were in Daniel’s cult at the time of the murders. Kathryn keeps digging his past lies and goes behind his present evasions to stop him from committing further killings. It is important for her to do that well in time before Daniel takes the life of other innocent people of the city. The problem of Kathryn keeps growing knowing that Daniel was famous for being a seducer, an exploiter and a master of control. The novel is full of interesting twists and turns in a masterful plot written by the author Jeffery Deaver. The readers found it to be extremely intriguing. The unique descriptions of the plot of the novel and excellent character depictions kept the readers interested till the very end.

The second novel of the series was titled ‘Roadside Crosses’ and was published in the year 2009 by Simon & Schuster publishing house. Just like the first novel of the series, which became the New York Times bestselling novel, this one too contains an interesting story. The plot of the novel starts with a serial killer who leaves roadside crosses beside the highways of Monterey Peninsula as an indication of his intention to commit murders. He uses the personal details of the his future victims by reading their blogs on social networking sites and adopts efficient and horrific ways of killing them. This case too falls under the interrogation and Kinesics expert Kathryn Dance of the California CBI. She begins to investigate the case of the serial killer along with her deputy Michael O’Neil. The two follow the trail to a troubled teenager named Travis Brigham. Travis was under constant attack from other people on the famous blog, The Chilton Report because of his involvement in a fatal car accident.

As Kathryn and Michael try to approach him for interrogation, he vanishes with the help of some useful techniques that he had learned as a participant in a multiplayer role-playing game. He becomes an expert in eluding and tracking down his victims. Kathryn is required to overcome some hurdles in the form of politicians in Sacramento, Brigham’s parents and the blogger James Chilton. She is forced to take some risky and desperate steps as her career seems to be in the dark because of the blogging of James Chilton about the progress of the case on his blog. The novel is filled with cliff-hanging and heartrending plots in the signature style of author Jeffery Deaver. The novel also reveals the blogging trends prevalent in the modern world and its harmful effects on the life of the bloggers. The readers thoroughly enjoyed the plot of the novel along with the vivid descriptions of the characters. The novel went on to become the third bestselling novel written by Jeffery Deaver as a high tech thriller. This motivated Jeffery to write a few more novels in the series along with his other novel series’. He still continues to contribute to the series.