History Literature / LincolnRhyme

* DropTheHammer: The People's Guardian / Vernon Griffith bludgeons people to death with a ball-peen hammer in ''The Steel Kiss''.

* HeroesWantRedHeads: Lincoln eventually ends up with Amelia, and in ''The Broken Window'' recounts with some embarrassment that his first love was also a redhead. Amelia seems more amused than anything.

** Yannis Gregorios [[spoiler:was a PeepingTom from a young age and as punishment was locked away in various rooms for years. This gave him an obsession with picking locks that led to him adopting the identity of "the Locksmith"]].

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Garret Haldon in ''The Empty Chair'' -- but then again, he's a 16 year old kid.

* SuperOCD: The Watchmaker.

A DetectiveDrama series written by lawyer-turned-novelist Jeffery Deaver, currently at twelve books and counting.

* ConspiracyTheorist: In ''The Midnight Lock'', the team have to deal with complications caused by ''Verum'', who is publishing all kinds of alleged conspiracies suggesting that "the Hidden" are manipulating events to keep those they favour in power. [[spoiler:In reality, "Verum" is Joanna Whittaker, heir to a major media empire, who realises her blogs just to attract attention and in reality doesn't believe in anything she posts so long as it gets hits]].

** [[spoiler: The Watchmaker]] in ''The Skin Collector'' has been faking from the start. [[spoiler: Billy Haven also gets in on this at the climax, dressing a homeless man as him and setting him up to gruesomely die so the police don't anticipate his next move.]]

** The Conjurer [[spoiler: lost his teacher Erick Weir in the circus fire.]]
** The Watchmaker has a notably [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking low-key]] one for the ostensible series BigBad: [[spoiler: his parents neglected him, so he started organizing things to stave off boredom.]]
** 522 [[spoiler: was abused by his parents, who neglected to address his mental health issues, and bullied by the foster children they eventually took in.]]
** Raymond Galt [[spoiler: got cancer from the power lines where he worked.]] At least, [[spoiler: that's what the Watchmaker wants everyone to think.]]

* OrgyOfEvidence: In the short story "A Textbook Case", the killer left behind a near-mountain of contradictory evidence. Simply categorizing the various kinds of evidence, before any sort of analysis could occur, would give the killer plenty of time to cover their tracks.

** Jacob Swann grew fixated on cooking as a way of getting his neglectful, frequently absentee father to pay more attention to him -- which was an only momentarily successful endeavor. [[KnifeNut His acquired skills with knives, on the other hand, stuck with him for life.]]

* GovernmentConspiracy: The plot of ''The Kill Room'' revolves around the government assassination of an American citizen in the Bahamas and a subsequent coverup. [[spoiler: However, while they are responsible for the hit, the KnifeNut PsychoForHire cleaning up witnesses is completely unaffiliated.]]

* KnifeNut: Jacob Swann in ''The Kill Room'' is obsessed with knives, preferring to dispatch people by flaying them slowly.

** Jacob Swann in ''The Kill Room'' is an independent specialist hired to clean up and dispose of witnesses related to a military operation. That he has a perverse fixation on inflicting pointless ColdBloodedTorture on his victims by [[KnifeNut using various types of knives]] to shred flesh like he's cooking is of no concern to his employers.

* AdultFear: Mary-Beth McConnells widowed mother has this pretty bad for most of the third book after her daughters abduction.

* BadassGay: Thom shows himself to be capable of some pretty badass feats when the time calls for it, from [[spoiler: charging through a frenzied gunfight with Lincoln in tow and only passing out from his own gunshot wound when they're in cover]] in ''The Empty Chair'' to scaring an assisted suicide advocate away from Rhyme in an uncharacteristic BerserkerRage in ''The Burning Wire''.
** In ''The Coffin Dancer'', [[spoiler: Stephen Kall turns out to be an ArmoredClosetGay with an attraction to Jodie. He still ranks as one of the most competent and deadly villains in the series.]]

''This page is about the Lincoln Rhyme series of novels. For the film based on the first book, check Film/TheBoneCollector''

* CluelessDeputy: Averted in ‘mThe Empry Chair’m with Deputy Nathan. He’s first mentioned when rhyme finds out he was smoking at the crime scene and mentally bites he should be fired for contaminating the evidence but when Nathan (the department sharpshooter) appears in person he’s very intelligent and moral in not taking a shot the senior deputy in the scene is pressuring him to, and later plays a role in [[spoiler: helping arrest Sherrie Bell after the climax reveals Bell is a DirtyCop while Nathan isn’t]].

* PhoneInDetective: Rhyme.

* NewYorkCityCops