Iris Johansen, Blind Alley

Blind Alley

Iris Johansen

Bantam, Sept 2004, $25.00, 336 pp.

ISBN 0553803417

Usually Joe wants Eve to ease up on her workload as a forensic sculptor, but this time he is pushing her to work as fast as she can. She understands when the sculpture is the face of Jane their adopted daughter. It seems that a serial killer is murdering women who look like Jane, thinking they are Cira, a woman who died in Herculaneum when Mt. Vesuvius blew. Coincidentally, Jane dreams of being Cira and fighting to get out of Herculaneum through the tunnels aided by her ex-lover Antonio.

Mark Trevor uses guiles and lies to ingratiate him into the search for Aldo because he has a score to settle with the man. Aldo has targeted Jane as his next victim, believing he has finally found the reincarnation of Cira. Her policeman father Joe, Eve and Trevor bait a trap that will hopefully bring Aldo out in the open so he can be captured if he doesn't kill them first.

Some of Iris Johansen's best books feature Eve Duncan and company and Blind Alley is no exception. This exciting action thriller involves Jane, who is older than her seventeen years, and the feelings that spring up between her and Trevor are appropriate because Trevor doesn't act on them. Although nothing can come of it because she is too young, she is determined when the time is right they will be together. This suspense-laden thriller features many of the characters readers have come to care for in the Eve Duncan series as this exciting and powerful work propels fans to want to read more of the fabulous works of Ms. Johansen.

Harriet Klausner