The Empty Chair is book three in the Lincoln Rhyme series, and it takes our characters outside their home of New York City and plops them into a small town in North Carolina. It’s an interesting idea, and I liked that this book started to question the idea of focusing only on evidence and including a little bit of psychology for good measure. It’s sadly under-explored, but it was interesting while it lasted.

While I definitely enjoyed this one more than The Coffin Dancer this time around, it did leave me feeling a bit incomplete. The “gotcha” moments were unfortunately transparent, and the truly interesting bad guy was barely explored, leaving the reader wondering what actually happened to the plot. Was he brought to justice? How did they finally get him?

The book felt rushed at the end, as it tried to tidy up plot lines from various main characters far too quickly, and with a few extra “gotchas” for good measure. I finished it and was like, “Oh, it’s over? Huh.”

This one had potential, but ended up feeling incomplete. We’ll see how the next one goes.