Review of Chasing The Night

Chasing The Night
Iris Johansen
St. Martin’s Press
362 pages

Chasing The Night is the 11th in the Eve Duncan forensic sculptor series, fans will be pleased with this action packed thriller and newcomers to the series will find this one will be the enticer to read the whole series.
Eve Duncan became a forensic sculptor because of the kidnapping and certain death of her daughter Bonnie, she wants to bring closure to parents of missing children by bringing them home by her reconstruction process and maybe in doing so will bring some comfort and closure where she’s had none.
Together with her long time mate and lover Joe Quinn, and CIA operative Venable they embark on a very different mission. Nine years ago former CIA operative Catherine Ling was enjoying domestic bliss when her world fell apart, as she listens on the phone her husband is brutally murdered and the sadistic monster responsible for it also kidnapped her 2yr old son Luke. Now eleven she needs the expertise of Eve to age her son in a last ditch attempt to rescue him. Will he still be alive and if he is will he be worth saving and through it all will Eve suffer the loss of Bonnie all over again by helping to bringing Luke home.
Ms. Johansen is her usual brilliant self in this edge of your seat, nail biting, chill a minute thriller. Her plot is as usual over the top, dealing with foreign politics, covert operations and operatives and death defying last minute rescues. Her dialogue is the matter of fact and in your face speak one would expect from hardened black ops, cops and evil villains, and her descriptive narrative will give her readers a bird’s eye view of the places she takes us to in the novel. Her characters will blow you away from the start and they all play their roles effortlessly and excellently. Her audiences will never tire of Eve and Joe and their continuing love story and the adversities they constantly encounter because Ms. Johansen keeps them fresh even after 11 novels in the series and this one is no exception. Her other protagonist Catherine is a character that will hold your interest all through the novel and the readers will feel all the emotions she goes through as she tries almost fruitlessly to rescue her son. But it’s always also a story of courage, of tenacity and of spirit that her characters provide for her readers.
Chasing The Night is one of those can’t put it down, pulse racing, page turners that will keep you under it’s spell until you read the words “the end”. If this is your first exposure to Ms. Johansen, believe me it won’t be your last. A must read for all you lovers of exceptional intrigue.