Jeffery Deaver's The Twelfth Card Quiz

Answer: July 23, 1868

Geneva is doing some research about her ancestor, a freedman who fought in the Civil War, who was falsely accused of theft. It is there, at the Museum of African-American Culture and History, that she is attacked by the hitman, Thompson Boyd.

Answer: The Hanged Man

Lincoln is fascinated by this card and its meaning. His team, however, soon finds out that the rape kit and the card don't mean anything; they're false evidence meant simply as a diversion.

Answer: Kara from "The Vanished Man"

Sachs calls her to ask her about the tarot card. Kara (who is doing fine, by the way) explains to the team that The Hanged Man is a positive card that means spiritual searching leading to a decision, a transition, or a change of direction.

Answer: "Either rains or it pours"

" 'Either rains or it pours,' Sellitto said. He frowned. 'I don't quite get that expression.' - 'Believe that's "Never rains but it pours." A statement of irony.'...."
Lincoln goes on to change the topic, but he reminds Lon of this little conversation whenever he comes up with another idiom.

Answer: Ron Pulaski

Ron Pulaski is a little bit like Jerry Banks, Lon's former partner - a young, enthusiastic police officer who still has a lot to learn. He gets seriously injured later on in the story, but he survives, and is even the one to give the team the crucial piece of information that finally helps them find out Boyd's identity.

Answer: a witness is shot to death right in front of him

Don Barry, the curator of the museum, is shot to death while talking to Lon. Throughout the story, Lon is haunted by Barry's eyes - alive in one moment, glazed in the next. It is due to this trauma that he accidentally fires a shot at Amelia, but this is not the cause of his condition but one of its consequences. Amelia finally manages to give Lon his confidence back.

Answer: Unsub 109

No one comes up with a proper name, so Lincoln decides to name him after the date of the attack - October 9.

Answer: Violet

Geneva has several letters written by Charles to his beloved wife, Violet. In these letters, he speaks of a secret that is troubling him. Everyone assumes that this secret is the reason that the killer is targeting Geneva.

Answer: Alonzo Jackson

We meet Jax, who is freshly released from prison, while he's looking for Geneva Settle. He collects information about her and buys a gun. With his usual way of cleverly wording his narrative, Deaver creates the impression that Jax is connected to Thompson Boyd - which later turns out to be as false as it gets.

Answer: Texas and Ohio

A former warden was killed in Amarillo, Texas, and the scene was set up to look like the site of a ritual killing. In Cleveland, Ohio, the witness in an upcoming trial was murdered. This time the fake evidence was meant to indicate a sexual assault.

Answer: Gallows Heights

Charles's farm was located in that area. This was his secret - that he, a freed slave, owned fifteen acres of prime land. And this fact was the reason why Thompson Boyd was hired to kill Geneva.

Answer: Lakeesha

Lakeesha, or Keesh, is exactly the opposite of Geneva in many ways. She also goes to Langston Hughes High School in Harlem.

Answer: True

She lied to everyone, not just to Lincoln, about her parents. While she claims they're stuck in London due to air traffic problems, she actually lives on her own and paid someone to play her uncle for the time being. Her mother is dead, and she thinks her father ran off to Chicago. Only later does she learn that her father went to prison and that her mother made up the story about him leaving the family.

Answer: "The woman in white"

He sees her walking the grid at the museum crime scene, wearing the white Tyvek overall, and then starts to refer to her as "the woman in white."

Answer: ebonics

AAVE is a whole language subculture, but Geneva hates it. She notices, however, that Lakeesha's usage of AAVE is not always correct and assumes that her friend is trying to cover the fact that Standard English is actually her first language. The book includes a short description of AAVE rules, which is very interesting.

However, the translator in me is already wondering how on earth to get this across in the German version of the book. Knowing German publishers, I suppose they'll just leave it out.

After all, there's no way of literally translating an explanation on the usage of the verb "be" in the base form in an English sentence....

Answer: Jeanne Starke

He lives with Jeanne and her daughters, Britney and Lucy, pretending to be a salesman whose job requires a lot of traveling. Jeanne never suspects a thing - until the police finds out about him and he shoots Jeanne in order to escape, that is.

Answer: whistling

He is really good at whistling.

Answer: execution officer on death row

It was in prison that Thompson Boyd began to feel "numb." He started to regard the inmates as a sort of family. Later, when he began working as a hitman, he was curious to see whether this numbness would ever go away. But not even his relationship with Jeanne helped.

His former job is also the reason why he is so careful not to leave any fingerprints - his prints are registered not because he has a criminal record, but because he was a state employee.

Answer: an empty gun, her knife, and a rock

Shortly before she finds Boyd, Amelia switches guns with Lon, so that she has only five shots instead of fifteen. By the time she gets face to face with Boyd, Lon's revolver is empty. Boyd finds out that the gun is useless, but Amelia distracts him by throwing her knife at him, and when he ducks away, she attacks him with a rock.

Answer: Geneva's father

True, Jax is Geneva's father and didn't have anything to do with Thompson Boyd. Geneva is hostile at first, but then Jax saves her life, and they seem to grow accustomed to each other.

Answer: a skeleton

The body, Lincoln supposes, is that of one of the men who conspired against Charles, and Charles shot him in self-defense.

Answer: Alina Frazier

Alina Frazier impersonated a guidance counselor at Langston Hughes High in order to get close to Geneva. It is the fact that she tries to kill Geneva even after the case is apparently solved that makes Lincoln suspicious. He wonders whether they really found the reason why the hitman was hired and reconsiders things - well, we all know that Lincoln hates loose ends, and this time that was crucial.

Answer: William Ashberry

William Ashberry found out that Charles's land was exactly where the Sanford Foundation building is located and that Charles was framed so that Hiram Sanford could get his land. He wanted to keep Geneva from finding this out, or else she could rightfully claim damages from the Sanford Foundation. Well, Ashberry's plan didn't work out. Geneva knows her ancestor's secret and demands the money for the use of the land that should rightfully be hers.

Answer: movement of his right hand

"She settled down against him. Rhyme closed his fingers around her hand and squeezed hard. She squeezed back. - 'You know what we could do?' Sachs asked, a hint of conspiracy in her voice. 'Let's sneak in some wine and lunch. Pâté and cheese. French bread.' - 'You can buy food there. I remember that.

But the scotch is terrible. And it costs a fortune. What we could do is-' - 'Rhyme!' Sachs sat straight up in bed, gasping. - 'What's wrong?' he asked. - 'What did you just do?'...." It takes Amelia a while to realize that Rhyme just squeezed her hand.

It comes pretty unexpectedly, that's true. But I can say that I was quicker than Amelia - I got as far as "some wine and lunch" when I thought, "What the heck was that???!" and went back a few sentences. I couldn't have imagined a better ending to the book!

Answer: the "Hardy Boys" (Detectives Bedding and Saul)

I was about halfway through the story when I thought, "Where are the Hardy Boys?" They don't appear in this one. But the appearances of Kara and Parker Kincaid (that one even twice!) sorta make up for it.
Hope you liked this quiz. See you soon, and thanks for playing.