Quicksand-Iris Johansen

Quicksand
Iris Johansen
St. Martin’s April 2008, $26.95, 352 pp.
ISBN: 9780312368067

She became a forensic sculptor to put a face on the skeletal remains to bring closure to the families of the dead victims. Eve Duncan knows what it is like not to have that closure and not a day goes by that she doesn’t think of her seven year old daughter Bonnie who was taken from her years ago. Her live in lover Atlanta detective Joe Quinn has been with her whenever she searched for Bonnie’s remains through a tip or a hunch but he is getting weary of seeing Eve tear herself apart whenever her search winds up in failure.

Eve’s friend Colonel Montalvo from South America, who is in love with her, has found three possible suspects who might have killed Bonnie. One of them Henry Thistle is located in Bloomberg and Joe goes there without telling eve to try and catch him. Montalvo contacts Eve and tells her where Thistle might be. Eve immediately goes there to be with Joe and hopefully get some answers. Thistle escapes and Joe, Montalvo and Eve mount a search for him. He has kidnapped a young girl to use as bait to lead them to his trap. Helping them is psychic Megan Blair (see PANDORA’S DAUGHTER) who hears the voices of the dead.

The Eve Duncan thrillers are absolutely mesmerizing and QUICKSAND is one of the best books in the series. Almost no body can create such sympathetic characters who have endured so much pain and yet still have the strength to keep going even if it is obsessive like Eve who thinks of what she does as a mission. Montalvo inverts himself into Eve’s life forging an unusual romantic triangle; but it is the action scenes that keep the audience turning the pages until they finish the thriller in one sitting.

Harriet Klausner