Title:	The Rule of Threes: A Novella
	Author:	Jeffery Deaver
	Published:	March 1, 2024, Amazon Original Stories
	No. of Pages:	261
	Cover Price:	Free on Kindle Unlimited

There are several things going on in Clark Valley, a small town in Illinois. Among them, the town is reviewing a treaty that was just discovered that, if authentic, turns most of the town over to the Indians for a reservation; many of the residents will lose their property, and, there is a serial killer who has brutally murdered two young women within days of each other. Constant Marlow, the protagonist, has been featured in some of Jeffery Deaver’s short stories, but has been brought in as the lead detective to find the killer in The Rule of Threes.

Unfortunately, this novella (luckily shorter than Deaver’s 5 star novels) doesn’t stand up to his usual suspenseful tales that keep readers on the edge. While Deaver gets into the mindset of the perp, it leads to a dead end; suddenly about three-fourths of the way through the novella, the killer is no longer the killer with no explanation except some scenarios that don’t add up. Constant and the supporting characters are well-developed, as is expected from Deaver, but the storyline isn’t easy to follow. Jeffery Deaver has been a bestselling author for decades, and has lived up to his reputation as one of the best. However, this one is definitely lacking. It has occurred to this reviewer that it wasn’t actually written by Deaver, a favorite author who has never written a novel that left parts of the plot hanging.

Every author has a few novels that aren’t as good as the others, and this may be Deaver’s worst. It is not recommended, although Constant Marlow is a character that should be featured in some new novels.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.