Identity (Five Star First Edition Mystery) [Library Binding]

Steve Vance (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

ublic do-gooder Dr. Ansel Heywood secretly does reconstructive surgery for the Federal Witness Protection Program including removing people's memories to create government assassins in Steve Vance's (The Hyde Effect) Identity. Searching for his vanished sister upon being released from wrongful incarceration, Bobby Preston visits Dr. Heywood's practice only to become embroiled in a massive, covert project that's not turning out as the government planned.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Three young people are found butchered in rural Washington State. To FBI agent Russell Montgomery, it is unmistakably the work of Calvin Peter Bryant, aka the Prince of Darkness, assumed to have been killed by Montgomery himself. Bryant, it turns out, has been saved by the Madison Virginia Facial and Cranial Center, whose surgeons have been working for the CIA, building new faces for serial killers, who are then assigned to do off-the-record assassinations. The paths of the Prince, agent Montgomery, a staffer from the center, and an ex-con drifter named Bobby Preston are about to converge in a violent series of events that will leave even the survivors with scars that no doctor can erase. Vance takes the standard psycho-killer format and adds a frightening twist with the new-identity factor. The killer walks among all the principals, but we don't know who he is until the last few pages. Character takes a back seat to plot here, but the frenetic action will keep readers guessing until the final chapter. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Library Binding: 313 pages
• Publisher: Five Star (ME) (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786230088
• ISBN-13: 978-0786230082
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,154,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where is the action, January 12, 2005

By 

Tina "Tina" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Identity (Mass Market Paperback)

If you have a serious facial or cranial injury, the place to be is the Madison Facial and Cranial Surgery center. However, butchered bodies are showing up around the area and its bringing out the big guns - such as the FBI.

One FBI guy knows instantly who is responsible. The Prince of Darkness, who was supposed to have been killed two years ago.

While the premise of this book sounds exciting, the writing is not. The author writes in a down to earth manner, but for some reason, spends page after page describing and/or introducting yet another character.

This book is deep in characters and very little on plot and action. Although I get the impression the author was trying to flesh out the characters, the end results is that we get bogged down in the number of characters and we get bored by the little activity there is.

While this is not a horrible read, there just isn't much action in this book.