The Burial Hour by Jeffery Deaver

They call him The Composer.  He kills in a way designed to extract the maximum amount of unique sounds from the victim and his surroundings.  His method of execution always involves a noose in some manner and usually some form of extended suffering for the victim.

The timing couldn't be worse for Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs.  After years together, they are finally about to be married.  This is a far cry from back when Rhyme was the head of Forensics for the NYPD and Amelia just another cop.  After the accident that left Rhyme a quadriplic, he had to refocus his life and the thing that took the longest in his recovery was believing that there was any way romance could still be a part of his life.

The two manage to almost catch The Composer and save his latest victim.  Fearing Amelia whom he calls Artemis after the beautiful huntress of mythology, The Composer decides to change locations.  Soon, stories of similiar victims start to emerge from Italy, Naples to be exact.  The entire Rhyme household picks up and moves their detecting activities to Italy.  They have to fight Italian politics and turf wars as well.  Amelia finds a new sidekick in a forestry agent who has wanted to move over to the police.  Can this crew find The Composer before he writes his next murderous composition?

This is the thirteenth novel in the Lincoln Rhyme series.  This one was not my favorite and the plotting seemed a bit looser than in earlier books in the series.  Still, Deaver is a master writer and this one is a page-turner as are all his novels.  This book is recommended for mystery writers.