Jeffery Deaver's "Twisted" Trivia Quiz

Answer: tonight

A Note On The Info Section: At first I give a summary of the plot. The heading SPOILER warns you that the decisive plot twist is revealed then, and the heading TWISTED tries to explain why the plot twist is so unexpected.
We meet Marissa when she's about to go on her first date since she was married, with a man she met online. She wonders whether she will ever fall in love again. Meanwhile, the man she is going to meet is killing a woman....
SPOILER: What we learn only later is that this man, Dale O'Banion, is a hitman, hired by Marissa to kill Jonathan, who is cheating on his wife all the time.
TWISTED: Deaver makes us think at first that Jonathan is already dead and that Marissa is still trying to cope with his death. We think that she is finally going out again, and then we find out that she's dating a murderer.

Answer: going blind

Jack and his partner, Toth, are gangsters who rob a gas station, kill a man, and take another man hostage - Mr. Weller, the Weekender. Toth dies, and Jack and Weller spend hours talking to each other. And Weller seems to succeed in talking Jack into letting him go....
SPOILER: Unfortunately, what Weller really wants is revenge, because the man who was killed was his friend. Bad thing for Jack that Weller knows his greatest fear....
TWISTED: Deaver makes us think that Jack and Weller are really getting along very well, almost becoming friends, and we all think that Jack will probably let Weller go, and Weller in turn will not give Jack away.

Answer: 11 million

Psychologist Harry Bernstein has a patient, Patsy Randolph, who claims her husband, Peter, is systematically trying to drive her crazy. And Patsy's 11 million dollars are a good motive for him to do so....
SPOILER: But Harry is a clever shrink, and so he finds out that Patsy only pretends to be psychotic in order to get away with Peter's murder. Harry promises her to keep silent if she pays his huge bill that reads, "For services rendered: $ 10 million."
TWISTED: Deaver tricks us twice here: First we think that Patsy is an innocent victim (which she is not), and then we think that Harry is going to tell the police or the court about Patsy's schemes and plans (which he is not).

Answer: "... and I picked me."

Kari Swanson is a model, and she has repeatedly been described as "The most beautiful woman on earth." But she is not happy, for a man called David Dale has been stalking her for months. So one day, Kari takes matters into her own hands: we see her meet a man whom she pays a lot of money; then she calls Dale and makes an appointment. When the police officers hear of this, they think Kari might want to kill Dale, so they follow them - and are just in time to see Dale collapse to the ground, evidently in great pain....
SPOILER: Instead of shooting the stalker, Kari undergoes plastic surgery (the surgeon was the man she paid). She treats her flawless, beautiful face for a plainer one. When Dale sees her like this, he is absolutely thunderstruck, and then he starts howling and whining and whimpering. Kari, however, can start a new life without the burden of her dazzling beauty.
TWISTED: Deaver makes us think, of course, that Kari is going to hire a hitman to kill Dale, and later that she herself kills Dale. But in fact, it is Kari Swanson the supermodel who is killed in this story. "One of us had to die, and I picked me."

Answer: Lawrence could kill her husband

Carolyn's husband, Stan, has an affair, and Carolyn now needs a "Fall Guy," a scapegoat. Lawrence is just perfect for the role, and the two of them plan the crime: Lawrence will use the mugger's gun, and Carolyn will wait in the car outside the motel.
SPOILER: Unfortunately, it all turns out to be a double bluff, and Carolyn ends up the prime suspect of murdering her husband and his girlfriend, Loretta Samples - Lawrence's wife....
TWISTED: Deaver makes us think that it is Carolyn who manipulates Lawrence and talks him into killing Stan and Lorrie, but in fact it is the other way round. Lawrence is using Carolyn as his "Fall Guy".

Answer: Nate and Lester

Officers Ed and Boz interrogate Nate as to the man he saw hiding the haul after a spectacular heist. They think it was Lester, and Nate finally tells them that he saw him. And Ed and Boz do find $90,000....
SPOILER: Deciding to keep the money and get rid of Nate and Lester, they try to provoke Nate's murder by Lester. But this never takes place, as Nate has told the FBI that Ed and Boz pulled off the heist (due to a childhood grudge he has against the two) - and the FBI does find part of the haul in Ed's car: $ 90,000.... In the end, we learn that Nate and Lester are actually the ones behind it.
TWISTED: The main twist here is that the two policemen actually get tempted by the money and plan a crime in order to keep it. And Deaver manages to make us think that they'll get away with it, so the next twist is when the FBI turns up and arrests Ed and Boz. And, of course, the last one is when we learn that Nate is the head of the gang.

Answer: True

This story tells of Pete and Mo. Pete finds out that Mo has an affair with her new boss, Doug, and he is so jealous that he plans to murder the man. The opportunity comes when Pete is visiting Doug. Pete has a book called "Triangle," a true-crime story, which he uses as a guide for Doug's murder. And he actually kills him....
SPOILER: What we only learn in the end, of course, is that Pete is not Mo's husband but her ten-year-old son. Yet he has enough criminal energy to commit cold-blooded murder and enough wits to make it look like an accident. But of course no one would suspect the ten-year-old boy of murder.
TWISTED: Deaver makes us think that Pete and Mo are husband and wife, not mother and son, without ever actually saying so. But we all know that this is Deaver's specialty - tricking his readers into automatically supposing something that is actually not true at all. This story is especially interesting when you read it a second time - you really can't believe how you could ever think that Pete was a grown-up man.

Answer: William Shakespeare

This story is set in London in the 16th century and tells how Charles Cooper, an aspiring young actor and friend of the playwright Will Shakespeare, plays his revenge on Robert Murtaugh, who once betrayed Cooper's family.
SPOILER: Charles Cooper is charged in court with the murder of Robert Murtaugh when Will Shakespeare testifies: Murtaugh and Cooper were merely practising a scene from his newest play ("Othello"), and in the course of this, Murtaugh had an accident. The eyewitness confirms that the lines from Will's play were really spoken by Cooper and Murtaugh. Cooper is acquitted.
TWISTED: Well, we have of course no idea how on earth Charles is going to get away with the murder. Will Shakespeare's intervention comes pretty unexpectedly.

Answer: it has an integrated compass

Alex, loving father of Jessie, likes to go fishing for relaxation. He promises his little daughter that he will bring her a present, and then he leaves despite the warning of a killer that's on the loose in the area where he wants to go....
SPOILER: What Alex doesn't tell his daughter on returning is that the present he brought her - a watch with an integrated compass - belonged to a fellow fisherman Alex met and killed.
TWISTED: Deaver makes us fear for Alex to fall prey to the killer from the lake. And when Alex actually meets another fisherman there, we all bite our fingernails and hope Alex won't be the next victim. But how could he fall prey to himself? It is of course very unexpected when we learn that Alex is the killer.

Answer: Tony Vincenzo

Tony, a police officer who witnesses a young African-American stealing a violin, volunteers to track down the thief in exchange for a promotion.
SPOILER: But when he finds out that the young man, Damon Williams, only wanted to play the violin to earn some money in the subway station, Tony pretends to have lost the thief and introduces Damon as the one who found the violin. Damon gets a reward of $ 10,000, so now he can buy a violin for himself.
TWISTED: Who would have thought that a police officer would save a thief and even help him earn some money? But in the end everyone is content, so why bother?

Answer: carrying a loaded firearm within 100 yards of a school

Public Prosecutor Danny Tribow wants the defendant of his current case, Raymond Hartman, to go to prison for first-degree murder. But Hartman doesn't want to serve time by any means, and so he tells Tribow that if he can't be fined instead, he'll walk out of the trial as a free man with no punishment at all. And Hartman actually manages to be acquitted of all charges....
SPOILER: However, Tribow plays his ace after the trial. He re-arrests Hartman on a different charge, a lesser-included offense that he didn't mention during the trial, but at the same time proved it beyond all reasonable doubt: breach of § 18 (31 - B) of the State Penal Code - carrying a loaded firearm within 100 yards of a school. Hartman will go to prison, after all, and most likely be killed there.
TWISTED: What a classic example of construing the law according to one's own purposes: if you can't get him for murder, get him for something else. And there the reader was, wondering why Tribow asked all these odd questions about game boys and guns.

Answer: No

Dennis finds a blank Christmas card in his wife's drawer and immediately suspects her of cheating on him. It's the little things that make him suspicious: Mary talking on the phone; Mary going to San Francisco alone (though on business).... He gets ever more paranoid, and eventually he flips out: thinking his wife has a rendez-vous, he follows her and threatens her with a gun. The gun doesn't fire, and the rendez-vous turns out to be a reunion of Mary, her friend, and the friend's husband. Dennis is arrested while Mary is stunned at her husband's exaggerated distrust and jealousy.
SPOILER: In the end we learn that Dennis appears to have been right from the very beginning: Mary has remarried, namely Dennis's best friend, Sid, and she says they first went on a date in San Francisco. Their affair must have been going on for quite a while already.
TWISTED: Deaver makes us think that Dennis is downright paranoid, making up wild stories that are not true at all. But in the end, he was right.

Answer: Dalton compares the garden path to a ski slope

This story shows us that even Lincoln Rhyme has, in a way, a sense for Christmas. He agrees to help a young girl, Carly Thompson, find her mother, Susan, who has disappeared.
SPOILER: Susan's ex husband, Anthony Dalton, eventually gives himself away by comparing the garden path leading to Susan's house to a ski slope. Susan moved in this house only last spring, and Dalton claims he hasn't been at the house for quite a while - hence he wouldn't know what the path looks like in the snow. Sachs comes just in time to rescue Susan.
TWISTED: This story is a little different. There is no situation that is in fact entirely different from what the reader thinks, as is the case in most of the other stories. But it's nice to see a little bit more of Lincoln Rhyme.

Answer: Allison is dead

This is another one of my favorites. Manko, a man of 37 years, tells his story to someone called Frank: he fell in love with the beautiful Allison Morgan but her father didn't accept their love. So they eloped together...
SPOILER: Nothing is as it seems, of course, for in the end we learn that Manko stalked, kidnapped, and killed Allison. Frank is the priest of the penitentiary where Manko will be executed at midnight....
TWISTED: Once again, Deaver makes the reader think that the situation is an entirely different one: we automatically suppose that Manko and Frank are buddies, and that Manko tells Frank the story of an extraordinary love (from Allison's side as well, of course....)

Answer: Sandra May

Sandra May, the widow of the late businessman Jim DuMont, thinks her husband's company is going bankrupt, so she enlists the help of Bill Ralston to check the books as to whether Jim embezzled money from the firm. But Loretta, Jim's secretary, warns Sandra May that Bill might be planning to rob the company.
SPOILER: After numerous plot twists, we learn that Loretta and Bill are brother and sister and that they really want to get their hands on the company - and that Sandra May killed her husband.
TWISTED: Our sympathies lie with the widow who desperately tries to save her heritage from bankruptcy, and in the end we learn that she is not as innocent as we thought....
I hope you liked this quiz.