SILENCING EVE by Iris Johansen

Publisher:   St. Martins  

Published:   October 1, 2013

ISBN:  978-1250020024

Genre:   Thriller, Contemporary

Format:   Hardback

Obtained via:  Publisher

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

THREE HEARTS

Kevin Doane is perhaps the ugliest of killers.  Not his own physical looks, but he, himself, from deep inside is the most despicable of creatures.  Now, even though Kevin is dead, his father, James, carries on his horrific legacy.  First he kidnaps forensic sculptor Eve Duncan—they he blows both Eve and himself up.  Only James is more devious than simply killing himself.  Rather he sets up a situation to appear that he and Eve have been destroyed.  Now, on the run, he plans to destroy Eve’s family while at the same time raining nuclear destruction on two American cities. 

Despite the years since her daughter Bonnie was taken from her and killed Eve Duncan keeps Bonnie’s memory alive as she reconstructs the faces of deceased children and returns at least a part of their physical bodies to their families.  There have been times over the years killers have manipulated her into reconstructing faces for their own reasons.  But this time, Doane’s insistence that she reconstruction Kevin, is the most horrific of all.  Yet in that reconstruction Eve might be able to let her loved ones know she is still alive.

Her adopted daughter, Jane Maguire doesn’t believe Eve is dead.  Neither does her long-time lover, Joe Quinn.  It is Jane who is on the trail to find Eve.  Will she succeed or this time will the killers win?

Not long ago a friend asked me what I thought of Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series.  While the stories can move along at a good clip and some of the characters are likeable, I’ve never warmed up to Eve.  She’s just too two dimensional and not a very sympathetic character.  Pretty much if you’ve read one Eve Duncan book, you’ve read them all—at least the ones where the story is built around Eve.  Characters like Catherine Ling, Mark Trevor and a few others are pretty good to read.  Eve is locked in the time when her daughter, Bonnie, was taken from her.  Yes, I know people can grieve to the point that they will never move on—some losses can be so painful that we freeze in that time and can never move on.  Despite other people in her life, people who love her, Eve continues as a prickly, not very likeable character. 

Johansen relies heavily on dialogue with minimal narrative and almost never describes the setting the characters are in.  They talk at each other and the reader seldom experiences any of their visceral actions. 

SILENCING EVE is one of the better reads in this series.  I did not read the first two in this sub-trilogy of the Eve Duncan series and there is minimal to no back story, but you do not have to have read any of the other books to keep up with this story. 

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.