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STALEMATE
by Iris Johansen
Bantam Books, December 2007
400 pages
$7.99
ISBN: 0553586548


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Eve Duncan took up forensic work after the disappearance of her own daughter Bonnie, seeking to provide other families the comfort of 'bringing the dead home' by identifying individuals through her forensic sculpture. This work has always been done in tandem with law enforcement. When a Colombian gun runner and drug lord makes Duncan an offer she cannot refuse, Eve risks all to solve not only the Colombian case but her own mystery as well. The lure used by the Colombian mastermind: information about her own daughter’s death.

STALEMATE is a contradiction of sorts: The first part of the book is an exciting psychological cat-and-mouse game between Duncan and Colombian criminal Luis Montalvo. While working on the face of another missing boy, Duncan receives several calls requesting her assistance in Colombia. Duncan recognizes the danger involved: entering the armed camp of a dangerous killer. Still, the lure of solving her own daughter’s death, of getting some closure on who killed her daughter and where the bones lie buried, is too great a temptation, even for the strong-willed, savvy Duncan.

This part of the book really works to lure the reader in, with author Iris Johansen showing why she has such a wide following for the thriller series based on character Eve Duncan. The battle of minds between Colombian criminal Montalvo and Duncan is riveting. Once Johansen moves the action to Colombia, however, it is clear that she is in over her head. First of all, it’s clear that she relies on her own imagination (instead of thorough research) to craft the Colombian setting. Then she develops sexual tension between the villain and Eve, seeking to make Montalvo an understandable (even likable) villain who’s been done wrong himself by an even more evil Colombian figure.

This is when the whole premise of STALEMATE begins to fall apart. All the heightened tension that drove the first part of the story becomes mired down in failed rescue attempts by Eve’s husband (a former Special Forces member, of course) and a CIA friend. Meanwhile, Montalvo becomes even more reasonable a figure than Eve’s own husband Joe, an Atlanta police officer.

While Eve continues to place herself in ever more dangerous circumstances as the book wraps up, the plot becomes increasingly unbelievable. And, unfortunately, the story becomes tired and even more contrived. What began with so much promise ends up like many other half-baked thriller plots, not really worth bothering to finish. Johansen has the potential to be a great writer (as the first half of STALEMATE indicates), but she has failed her readers in this book’s second half.

Reviewed by Christine Zibas, January 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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