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kylapatt's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I liked the interesting perspective of Eve being a forensic sculpture while going through her own trauma with her daughter. Logan a political person trying to convince her to help which she agrees and goes on a crazy ride. Eve having dream sequences with her daughter are interesting in a way she is combating her grief. The whole story is political action packed and compelling with the mystery of the skull. crazy the conspiracy with the president.
book_concierge's review against another edition
2.0
Digital audiobook read by Laurel Lefkow
First in a series starring Eve Duncan, a forensic sculptor, whose job it is to create a likeness based on skulls retrieved from crime scenes. She particularly passionate about “finding” images of children, as her own daughter, Bonnie, was kidnapped and presumed murdered a few years before the beginning of this novel. But now she’s been asked by billionaire John Logan to work for him for two weeks, and an extremely high salary, plus an equally large donation to Eve’s favorite charity. The identity of the person whose skull she is given stuns Eve and explains why so many people are obviously trying to stop her and Logan from discovering and revealing the truth.
There are plenty of twists and turns and plenty of action as Eve moves from crisis to disaster to being chased and having her mother in danger. Political intrigue and power-hungry people with evil intentions further muddy the waters. Then Johansen throws in a romantic tension, with a push/pull attraction between Logan and Eve that just didn’t ring true for me. Plus, I wanted more about the forensics.
It held my attention and kept me reading – but I’ve already forgotten it.
Laurel Lefkow did a good job of narrating the audiobook. She sets a good pace and differentiates the characters enough so as to avoid confusion.
First in a series starring Eve Duncan, a forensic sculptor, whose job it is to create a likeness based on skulls retrieved from crime scenes. She particularly passionate about “finding” images of children, as her own daughter, Bonnie, was kidnapped and presumed murdered a few years before the beginning of this novel. But now she’s been asked by billionaire John Logan to work for him for two weeks, and an extremely high salary, plus an equally large donation to Eve’s favorite charity. The identity of the person whose skull she is given stuns Eve and explains why so many people are obviously trying to stop her and Logan from discovering and revealing the truth.
There are plenty of twists and turns and plenty of action as Eve moves from crisis to disaster to being chased and having her mother in danger. Political intrigue and power-hungry people with evil intentions further muddy the waters. Then Johansen throws in a romantic tension, with a push/pull attraction between Logan and Eve that just didn’t ring true for me. Plus, I wanted more about the forensics.
It held my attention and kept me reading – but I’ve already forgotten it.
Laurel Lefkow did a good job of narrating the audiobook. She sets a good pace and differentiates the characters enough so as to avoid confusion.
chris80dawn's review against another edition
5.0
Mystery, political intrigue and cover up, and a fast paced thrill ride! Great start to the Eve Duncan series
qu33nofbookz's review
1.0
If I could give this book negative stars I would, I have no idea who it has such a high rating (4.07?!?!?! WTF). Am I in an alternate dimension and reading a different book than everyone else? I will never read another book by this author again.
The author's idea for this book is a scifi take on a plot point from the movie Dave mixed with the Manchurian Candidate and a hint of Absolute Power... The president is dead so his body double will stand in for him. The wife will help with the cover-up because she is responsible for his death. The body double is being brainwashed by the wife of the man he is impersonating. She and her staff must kill everyone who knows or suspects so they can be elected for another term.
The first chapter is good and the little bit after that is nice but then it goes to shit. I hated this book by chapter 2 but my OCD compels me to finish. I had read another of the author's books and hated it but thought I'd give her a second chance. I wish I hadn't.
The plot of this book is completely unbelievable it should be in the fantasy category. It even has supernatural elements with Eve hallucinating all the time talking to her dead daughter's ghost/hallucination. I hated the "hero" immediately and wanted the heroine to shoot the bastard. The "hero" is the secondary villain and a hated him. He had zero chemistry with the heroine but because of the formula all books have they end up sleeping together(thankfully at the end and off-page). I hate this too, the forced relationship/attraction. I hate that all books ever published in the last 30 years have a formula that the hero or heroine of a book needs to have a partner or romance or just temporary sexual relationship with whoever they are working with/seeing all the time at that point in their life. There can be single people who enjoy being single or don't need to fall into bed with someone just because they spend a little time together.
Eve is a strong woman who has had a hard life but keeps pulling herself up by her bootstraps. She channels her pain at losing her daughter into helping others by identifying the skulls of missing and unidentified children. Then by chapter 3 she is a doormat...I hate it when books do that. She just bows down to the men around her when they say boo. She goes on and on about how she is standing up to them but she isn't.
The layout of the book is horrible, and the editing is poor. The POV and dialogue shifts are jarring and can be confusing at times because of what the characters are doing or talking about or talking to. It just ends one paragraph and picks up some other person's POV and setting/actions with no segway. The dialogue is also very bad, it is of an eye-rolling caliber, annoyed sigh-inducing, and cringe-worthy in turns, and is rarely interesting. Zero character development. I dislike all the characters, not a single one is likable by the halfway point when only two were in the beginning. By the end, you are hoping something will happen to kill them all and put us out of our misery.
The villain is a cartoon character. He is so bad it's laughable. However, one of the murders he commits, a descriptive killing and sexual mutilation of a character only briefly mentioned and of no real importance was unnecessary. The gratuitous violence against women for no real reason does not need to be added to a book when it accomplished nothing but to disgust a reader as it serves no purpose to the plot or any character development. Also, the killings are completely unrealistic at times, like driving a camping tent stake through 2 people and still have it sticking out at one end...I have never come across a tent stake longer than 12 inches and those were not camping tent stakes.
The plot and reasons for what is happening are not conducive to reality, this could be science fiction. The reason behind everything... and the JFK conspiracy that isn't. I hate when books try to bash you over the head with their heavy-handed politics. If I had known this book had so much political crap in it I would never have touched it. Needs to be added to the book blurb so people don't waste their time.
The author's idea for this book is a scifi take on a plot point from the movie Dave mixed with the Manchurian Candidate and a hint of Absolute Power... The president is dead so his body double will stand in for him. The wife will help with the cover-up because she is responsible for his death. The body double is being brainwashed by the wife of the man he is impersonating. She and her staff must kill everyone who knows or suspects so they can be elected for another term.
The first chapter is good and the little bit after that is nice but then it goes to shit. I hated this book by chapter 2 but my OCD compels me to finish. I had read another of the author's books and hated it but thought I'd give her a second chance. I wish I hadn't.
The plot of this book is completely unbelievable it should be in the fantasy category. It even has supernatural elements with Eve hallucinating all the time talking to her dead daughter's ghost/hallucination. I hated the "hero" immediately and wanted the heroine to shoot the bastard. The "hero" is the secondary villain and a hated him. He had zero chemistry with the heroine but because of the formula all books have they end up sleeping together(thankfully at the end and off-page). I hate this too, the forced relationship/attraction. I hate that all books ever published in the last 30 years have a formula that the hero or heroine of a book needs to have a partner or romance or just temporary sexual relationship with whoever they are working with/seeing all the time at that point in their life. There can be single people who enjoy being single or don't need to fall into bed with someone just because they spend a little time together.
Eve is a strong woman who has had a hard life but keeps pulling herself up by her bootstraps. She channels her pain at losing her daughter into helping others by identifying the skulls of missing and unidentified children. Then by chapter 3 she is a doormat...I hate it when books do that. She just bows down to the men around her when they say boo. She goes on and on about how she is standing up to them but she isn't.
The layout of the book is horrible, and the editing is poor. The POV and dialogue shifts are jarring and can be confusing at times because of what the characters are doing or talking about or talking to. It just ends one paragraph and picks up some other person's POV and setting/actions with no segway. The dialogue is also very bad, it is of an eye-rolling caliber, annoyed sigh-inducing, and cringe-worthy in turns, and is rarely interesting. Zero character development. I dislike all the characters, not a single one is likable by the halfway point when only two were in the beginning. By the end, you are hoping something will happen to kill them all and put us out of our misery.
The villain is a cartoon character. He is so bad it's laughable. However, one of the murders he commits, a descriptive killing and sexual mutilation of a character only briefly mentioned and of no real importance was unnecessary. The gratuitous violence against women for no real reason does not need to be added to a book when it accomplished nothing but to disgust a reader as it serves no purpose to the plot or any character development. Also, the killings are completely unrealistic at times, like driving a camping tent stake through 2 people and still have it sticking out at one end...I have never come across a tent stake longer than 12 inches and those were not camping tent stakes.
The plot and reasons for what is happening are not conducive to reality, this could be science fiction. The reason behind everything...
Spoiler
politics! Someone wants a different candidate to win an election because the one in office is an imposter (a perfect clone like imposter that no one else can tell the difference!) so it's murder and mayhem just because the democrats don't want a republican to win.toodoorcc's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
rza1002's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
ljbearce's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.25