A layered, thrilling read that will likely motivate fans to read the final book, too.
After escaping Jim Doane, Eve Duncan navigates the Colorado wilderness to gain her freedom, while the people she loves scramble to find and rescue her.
Jim Doane is a father determined to avenge his son’s murder, and to that end, he has kidnapped Eve Duncan, a forensic sculptor, to reconstruct Kevin’s skull. But there are other reasons he wants Eve under his power, secrets in Eve’s past, of which she's not even aware, that will place her in grave danger. After learning some of Doane’s intentions, as well as the shocking truth that compelled him to make Eve a pawn in his deadly plan, Eve has escaped him and must keep out of his reach in dense forest far removed from civilization. Doane is a lifelong hunter, but Eve has great instincts, along with some tricks she’s picked up from her lover, Joe, an ex-SEAL, and she manages to hold her own. Meanwhile, Joe, their adoptive daughter, Jane, and a small posse of new and old friends and allies are using every weapon at their disposal to find Eve. The quest will force Jane and two possible love interests to work together; demand that Joe partner with the mysterious Zander and his enigmatic assistant, Stang; and forge an alliance between Margaret, a complex psychic, and Dr. Kendra Michaels, an investigator with finely honed powers of deduction and observation. Working in different corners of the country, the three teams will ultimately wind up in the same forest where Eve is fighting for her life, but a couple of surprising turns will make her Doane’s hostage again. In an explosive final scene, all seems lost until Margaret opens the door to hope—and another cliffhanger ending leading to Book 3. Johansen’s second in a planned trilogy revolving around Eve’s kidnapping and (readers can only expect) rescue will keep readers engaged in Eve’s fate and intrigued by the many characters who are working together to bring her to safety.
A layered, thrilling read that will likely motivate fans to read the final book, too.Pub Date: July 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01999-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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