Title: Smokescreen
Author: Iris Johansen
Series: Eve Duncan, #25
Published: July 2019, Grand Central Publishing
Format: Hardcover, 432 pages
Source: Personal copy
Summary:
In this pulse-pounding thriller from #1 New York Times
bestselling author Iris Johansen, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan journeys
to Africa to help families torn apart by a violent attack deep in the
jungle–but she may be putting herself in more danger than she knows.
A
journalist shows up on Eve Duncan’s doorstep with a plea for help. Jill
Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heart
wrenching story: half the villagers–many of them children–have been
killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned
beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve’s help to get
closure and begin to heal.
But when Eve arrives in the remote
jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill’s plea may have been a cover
story for a deeper, more sinister plot. Isolated and unsure who she can
trust, Eve finds herself stranded in an unstable country where violence
threatens to break out again at any moment and with only her own
instincts to rely on if she hopes to get home to her family alive . . .
#1 New York Times
bestselling author Iris Johansen is back with one of her most
exhilarating and dangerous adventures yet in this “riveting” high-stakes
thriller (Publishers Weekly).
My thoughts: It’s unbelievable to me that this series is still going strong. Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series is one of my favorite series – one of the first thriller series that I ever started reading. And what captivated me most in that first book I read, which I later came to find out was actually the second in the series, was what Eve did for a living, and that Eve is back in this book – doing what she does best!
I love seeing Eve in action, it’s my favorite part of this series and I love that we get to see her work on some reconstructions. Of course, that’s not the entire focus of this book – though I do wish we would see more of that as we did in the earlier books. Once Eve is lured to a remote location in Africa to reconstruct the skulls of children who were the victims of an awful terrorist attack, it becomes clear that she was completely manipulated. There’s definitely more going on than she was led to believe and while she’s not exactly happy about it, she’s not going to walk away from it either.
I love Eve’s determination to get things done. She’s curious and quite clever, sometimes too clever for her own good. I also love the bond between her and her husband Joe. He might seem over-protective of her, but he has reason to be…she has been known to get herself involved with dangerous people before.
The action in this book is just about nonstop and really keeps you glued to the pages. It’s filled with tension and suspense and more than a few twists that will have your heart beating frantically. I like that Iris Johansen isn’t afraid to take chances with her books – she set this one in a completely different setting, this time Africa, and used while she made up the town, used a little history to round out her character. I am always amazed at the depths that she gives all her characters, whether they are main characters or secondary. It really makes everyone stand out.
I enjoyed this latest installment and am already counting down the days until the next book comes out, Persuasion…June cannot get here fast enough!
Books in this series:
1. The Face of Deception 16. Taking Eve
2. The Killing Game 17. Hunting Eve
3. The Search 18. Silencing Eve
4. Body of Lies 19. Shadow Play
4.5 Dead Aim 20. Hide Away
5. Blind Alley 21. Night & Day
6. Countdown 22. Mind Game
7. Stalemate 23. Shattered Mirror
8. Quicksand 24. Dark Tribute
9. Blood Game 25. Smokescreen
10. Eight Days to Live 26. The Persuasion – due out June 2020
12. Eve
13. Quinn
14. Bonnie 15. Sleep No More
Wow, this book does sound amazing! Excellent review!