Stalemate (Eve Duncan)
by Iris Johansen
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Book Reviews of Stalemate (Eve Duncan)
Book Review: Finally figured out what's wrong. . .
Summary: 2 Stars
with the Eve Duncan novels. The plots are a little unrealistic but usually entertaining. However, they just aren't great, and I finally figured out why.
The reason? I can't stand Eve Duncan. I think the attempt is to portray her as a strong woman, but she isn't. She's a woman who is incapable of a relationship with her boyfriend and adopted daughter due to her unhealthy obsession with a dead child. She needs psychiatric help, not adventures that feed her disorder. All of the cases she takes on in these books are classic self-fulfilling situations-she agrees to take only the cases that allow her to continue to destroy her chances at happiness and that give her an excuse to pursue her obsessive-compulsive behavior.
This book is a solid example of Eve's problems. I don't find myself rooting for Eve, I find myself rooting for Joe to cut his ties with her, since she lies constantly about what she feels for him, and thinks nothing of turning her back when he needs her, and shuts him out when he dares express concern for her well being. Eve's tunnel vision includes only her dead daughter, and to hell with the rest of the people trying to care about her. It's very hard to like a character as selfish as she.
I think I'm done with Iris Johanssen after this latest clumsy attempt. When the only thing you can do while reading is root for the main character to be committed to a mental institution for the help she desperately needs, how can you really enjoy the book?
Book Review: Latest Eve Duncan thriller a winner
Summary: 5 Stars
I stumbled across Eve Duncan basically by accident, when I borrowed a book in 2002 from my employer - the book was the first of the series, Body of Lies (Eve Duncan) if I am not remembering incorrectly. I was hooked.
Eve Duncan is what is called a "forensic sculptor," which means she takes a skull and sculpts over it her interpretation of the face, based upon forensic measurements and - to a great extent - intuition. She has never yet been proved wrong. However, she generally works for families of missing children or law enforcement agencies - hoping with each skull she brings home, she might find her own daughter, missing all these years.
When she receives an offer from the infamous Luis Montalvo - who is well-known and wealthy arms dealer in Columbia - at first she firmly declines. He has tried twice to get her to travel to Columbia to sculpt a skull and she refused - however, the third time he makes an offer she cannot refuse in all good conscience, and she goes - in order to save an innocent family, and also with the promise that Montalvo will help her finally find her daughter.
By turns charming and creepy, Montalvo is a wonderful character and I certainly hope we'll see more of him.
Overall, a great addition to the series and a well-written book that promises and delivers. Don't miss it!
Book Review: Eve Duncan Seriesn is great!
Summary: 5 Stars
Well thought out and good read. Nothing fluffy about it. Well rounded characters that make you feel for each one, no matter which one. Definitely would reccommend it to a friend. In fact I already lent it out.
In the latest Eve Duncan forensics thriller from bestseller Johansen (Killer Dreams), the Atlanta-based forensic sculptor with an international reputation finds herself attracted, not always convincingly, to a sleazy manipulator. Duncan, who specializes in reconstructing facial features from skulls, has buried herself in her work since the disappearance and presumed death of her seven-year-old daughter, Bonnie, years earlier. That still-open wound is probed with sadistic skill by Luis Montalvo, a shady Colombian arms dealer, who offers to solve the mystery of what happened to Bonnie if Duncan agrees to attempt a reconstruction from a skull Montalvo believes was his late wife's. Despite the misgivings of her former husband, an FBI agent, Duncan accepts, and soon finds herself dodging bullets in a war between Montalvo and a drug lord rival in the Colombian jungle. Despite a shortage of the sort of meaty science that, say, a Kathy Reichs thriller typically provides, Johansen's faithful audience should be satisfied. (Jan.)
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Book Review: Starts Strong, but Fizzles Out
Summary: 3 Stars
"Stalemate" had the potential to be a great book. Iris Johansen has writing chops, which can be seen within the first part of this book. Eve Duncan, around whom Johansen has built her series, is a strong, likeable character. When we meet her in "Stalemate," she is working on the forensic sculpture of a young boy. Duncan took up this work when her own daughter, Bonnie, disappeared.
This unresolved grief in Duncan's life forces her into a tug-of-war with Colombian drug lord and gun runner Luis Montalvo. This psychological game in which Montalvo knows how to push Eve's buttons is fascinating, and draws us readers into the story. In the end, no matter what the risk, Duncan cannot resist an assignment that she knows will lead her to hell's door, all for the chance to resolve her own motherly grief and unanswered questions.
However, once Duncan arrives in Colombia, things in the story start their decline into unbelievability. So poorly written and researched is this part of the book that it wouldn't be surprising to me to learn that the book were finished by a completely different person. In short, it's hard to recommend this book to anyone except a die-hard Eve Duncan fan. What began with so much potential leaves the reader shaking their head by the end.
Book Review: What The Devil
Summary: 2 Stars
That's what Eve says about 1,950 times in this silly silly story, "What the devil?" I thought I might scream the next time she said "What the devil!" but managed to contain myself because I have house guests. Eve also often says "What the hell?", "Oh my God," "Good God," "Jesus!" and sometimes just "Christ!" Why the religious cursing hang-up?? This is the first book featuring Eve and Joe that I've read, and it will be my last, for I don't like either of them at all and this story was way too far-fetched and ridiculous with truly stupid motivation. The writing is bad to mediocre and the dialogue is unreal and dull at best. I've read a couple other Iris Johansen's but when I bought this, couldn't remember if I liked her or not... now I know I must not've, if this is typical of her imagination and output. It reads like a very bad romance novel but thankfully without any throbbing pulsating members and ripped bodices, just unrequited hormone goings-on as the sub-plot. All I can say to Iris Johansen is, What the devil, woman, get real!