Customer Reviews

Quicksand: An Eve Duncan Forensics Thriller (Eve Duncan Series)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Eve Duncan series started out with a bang, but now it's just limping along. In various books, Eve has attracted the undying devotion of a series of wealthy and/or highly skilled and/or loving men, but I've never figured out why. Her main characteristic is that she is totally fixated on finding the body of her murdered daughter, Bonnie. Nothing gets in her way, nothing sidetracks her for a minute, and she makes absolutely no compromises for the sake of those who love her, or those she purports to love.

All the bad guys are bad without any possibility of redemption. It's as if Johansen sets up a cardboard target with BAD GUY printed across the heart. The one in this book, Kistle, has not one single human quality, no cause for his twisted soul is hinted at, and he seems to be there simply so that Eve can direct her laser sights on him.

The good guys are floundering; everyone wants Eve (why???) but no one can win her. Joe, who has been around since the first novel, actually comes to the point of saying he can't take this any more, but is sucker-punched at the end of the book in a way that guarantees he'll be back in the next installment.

The biggest problem is that all the female characters have exactly the same personalities and speak in exactly the same way. Megan, Eve and Jane are interchangeable. If someone read any of their dialog aloud to you, without telling you who was speaking, you'd have no idea. They're all driven, outspoken, blunt. One such heroine is fine, but there needs to be at least some variation in the characters.

Johansen switched from series and historical romances to romantic suspense thrillers some years ago, and, having found a method that works for her, she's driving it into the ground. I have all her books, but I'm starting to get very tired of the repetitious style.

"Quicksand" is the kind of book that, if you started reading it, put it down, and came back to it a year later, you wouldn't have missed it at all, and might not even bother to finish it. Time for Johansen to bring this series to a close before it sinks beneath the sands.

I have enjoyed earlier works but I still wonder at times what Joe or Montalvo see in Eve. I would like to see a little compassion for Joe other than just words. Eve always seems to be thinking of herself. I have sympathy regarding her loss of Bonnie but how can she continue to hurt Joe and Jane. I guess I need to see a more human side of Eve in order to continue to read this series. At this point I'm starting to care less what happens to her and hope the others in her life just move on.

Iris Johansen knows her characters. She weaves characters from one book to the next with ease. You sometimes have to keep a scorecard of who's who, but it is certainly worth it.
In Stalemate, we met Montalvo, the mysterious Latin who hired Eve Duncan to do a facial reconstruction in exchange for information regarding Bonnie, Eve's daughter who was kidnapped and killed. Her body was never found. Of course an event like this is life changing, but Eve put a positive spin to it - she pulled her life together, went to school, and became a forensic sculptor, helping 'find' lost people's identities and letting them 'go home' to their families for proper burial.
Montalvo, and his right hand man, Miguel, are somewhat shady characters, but we see them as men of integrity, and their feelings for Eve are true.
Enter a character from Pandora's Daughter,Megan Blair. She is a 'Listener'. She hears the voices of the lost souls and helps find them for the family to find closure. She also learns all the gory details of the final moments of the victims and it is horrible to relive that as she finds these lost souls...
Enter Henry Thistle - a serial killer who claims he killed Bonnie, and wants Eve to be part of the hunt - to prevent other killings, while Thistle chases her in a sadistic dance of cat and mouse.
Quicksand is probably one of the best of the series - I have always been fascinated by the communication between Eve and her daughter, Bonnie. At first, it was intimated that Eve dreamed of Bonnie and their conversations. I never thought that. I always envisioned Bonnie as Spirit and she comes to comfort her mother. That has proven true. Bonnie is spirit. She is an important part of this series - love never dies - she feels no animosity towards her murderer - she is beyond that - she is, however, tremendously concerned about her mother and wants to let her know she is ok.
Megan, Eve, Joe, Eve's lover, Montalvo work to stop a madman from striking next. It is taut; it is heartbreaking; it is excellent. The ending is an amazing one that we didn't think would ever happen, and shows that Bonnie is a strong spirit working through the love of her family to be understood.
Knowing a lot of the back story of Eve Duncan's past would be good, but I think someone new to to the series would be able to jump in with this book and become part of this excellent series.
One thing - a really trivial thing - Perhaps Ms. Johansen could change her photograph for subsequent books. She is a lovely lady, and the photo used does not do her justice.
The Eve Duncan series is a brilliant character study - of so many characters and so many situations you will be amazed by Ms. Johansen's writing skills to incorporate all facets of this story to a believable, workable story.
Excellent.

I wish I liked this book better, but the characters had really no depth, and the writing was uninspired. The plot plodded along, without really much imagination, and I kept wondering what inspired any of the characters to do what they doing. The villain was completely evil, kind of a comic book type, who just did evil for the sake of being evil. Eve, the heroine, reconstructs skulls of unidentified remains, to help identify, and hopefully resolve a crime, or missing person. What a great premise, but, we learn nothing about the science - art of this skill set, and what could be a wonderful metaphor, is nothing but an unusual job for Eve, and that's that. The leading men are something out of a bad romance novel, honorable, loyal, smart and skilled and of course, ex navy seal types. But they know nothing else, but these surface traits, and they are not interesting or mysterious. As for Eve's lost daughter, whose body was never found, her mission to retrieve the remains is over the top and not realistic. I saw the ending coming a mile away, and I wont be needing to read any more of this story.

This Eve Duncan thriller can stand alone but is better understood and enjoyed if you have read "Stalemate" and "Pandora's Daughter". Eve Duncan is a forensic sculptor. She helps police departments all over the country and world to identify bodies where only a skeleton is found. Many of those she works on are children. She dedicated herself to this work when her daughter Bonnie who was only 7 years old was taken and her body and killer never found to this day. In "Stalemate" Eve helped a South American drug lord/rebel fighter by working on a skull her found to identify it as his missing wife. Eve was also aided by her longtime companion/lover Joe Quinn who is a detective with the Atlanta Police Department. Eve and Joe also have an adopted daughter Jane who they took in when she was about ten over a decade ago. Jane had graduated from college and is an artist in her own right. Montalvo had given Eve and Joe the names of 3 possible killers of Bonnie. Joe began investigating on his own and receives a call from the sheriff of a small-town who has been watching one of the suspects named Kistle.

As Joe, Eve and Montalvo are drawn to the town in Illinois where Kistle lived, the small town police admit a young boy had gone missing and presumed drowned not long ago. Montalvo wants the FBI involved and uses his CIA connections and "bribes" to get the FBI to bring in someone to look for the missing boy. This is Megan Blair from "Pandora's Daughter". Megan is a "Listener" and more.

How the hunt continues, who is really the hunter and who is really the prey and is Kistle Bonnie's killer and will he ever be caught leads Eve and Joe primarily into dangerous territory. Terrific story and exciting conclusion!

Highly recommended.

I have been reading all of Iris Johansen's books in this series and found this particular installment a bit tedious. It had many predictable stories and ultimately left the reader with yet another cliffhanger about Bonnie's killer. There were some funny moments and some unexpected twists, but for the most part, the reader can read the beginning to get a sense of the novel, skip the middle, and then read the last six - eight chapters and not feel too lost.

Same old. Same old. So Bonnie isn't found. Now another book will be another search with some crazed killer after them! What a lazy way to write. Just input the name of another killer and rehash some old facts and another book is born. I'm done reading them!

Maybe I'm just done with this storyline. I did not find it riveting. I didn't even find it interesting. I found it to be old news. Can we just find Bonnie already? Or just have Eve trying to move on with the idea Bonnie won't be found. Frankly, I see nothing for Joe and Motalvo to be interested in, in Eve. Her continual, "I'll go myself" attitude was laughable and highly unbelievable. The character, in the past, seems to have the brains to know what she's capable of...and what she's not.

She became a forensic sculptor to put a face on the skeletal remains to bring closure to the families of the dead victims. Eve Duncan knows what it is like not to have that closure and not a day goes by that she doesn't think of her seven year old daughter Bonnie who was taken from her years ago. Her live in lover Atlanta detective Joe Quinn has been with her whenever she searched for Bonnie's remains through a tip or a hunch but he is getting weary of seeing Eve tear herself apart whenever her search winds up in failure.

Eve's friend Colonel Montalvo from South America, who is in love with her, has found three possible suspects who might have killed Bonnie. One of them Henry Thistle is located in Bloomberg and Joe goes there without telling eve to try and catch him. Montalvo contacts Eve and tells her where Thistle might be. Eve immediately goes there to be with Joe and hopefully get some answers. Thistle escapes and Joe, Montalvo and Eve mount a search for him. He has kidnapped a young girl to use as bait to lead them to his trap. Helping them is psychic Megan Blair (see PANDORA'S DAUGHTER) who hears the voices of the dead.

The Eve Duncan thrillers are absolutely mesmerizing and QUICKSAND is one of the best books in the series. Almost no body can create such sympathetic characters who have endured so much pain and yet still have the strength to keep going even if it is obsessive like Eve who thinks of what she does as a mission. Montalvo inverts himself into Eve's life forging an unusual romantic triangle; but it is the action scenes that keep the audience turning the pages until they finish the thriller in one sitting.

Harriet Klausner

When I was about two third of the way through this book, I misplaced it. Although I hunted everywhere, I couldn't find it. I had also learned that I should have read Pandora's Daughter first to get Megan Blair's backstory. As it was in paper, I was able to buy a copy at the supermarket and read it before I got to the bookstore to buy another copy of Quicksand. It is definitely much better to read Pandora's Daughter first, believe me!

Although I have a great deal of sympathy for Eve, as I cannot imagine a greater tragedy than losing one's young child, she is also fixated on finding Bonnie to the point where it has become the overwhelming obsession of her life, overshadowing her love for Jane and Joe. I wanted to shake her and tell her to let go for their sakes.

I really didn't care much for Joe, especially his attitude (albeit an understandable one) about Megan and his growing lack of sympathy for Eve.

Megan, on the other hand, I felt to be a most sympathetic character, and I felt for her as she became involved with two madmen (Molino from Pandora's Daughter and Kistle from this book) in such a short period of time. I hope to see more books about her. My one complaint where she is concerned was that Grady wasn't there for her. He could have been most helpful in taking care of Kistle, too.

Another character I really liked was Montalvo's sidekick, Miguel. He was brave, charming, funny, a person I would have liked to know. And he was just what Amy, the kidnapped child, needed. I'm sure we'll see him again, and I hope Megan's friend Jed Hartley can help him with his hands.

I can't help but like Montalvo. In spite of his past, he has a code of honor & ethics, and he doesn't give Eve the grief that Joe does. I don't see her having much more of a future with Joe.

The book was exciting, but Kistle was such a monster that he seemed inhuman, a ravening wolf in man's clothes. The reader can't help but despise him. In a way, this seemed to be an echo of Pandora's Daughter, as the heroine becomes the target of one of the most evil men to walk the earth, who has a personal grudge against her. It's a fast read and an easy one (unless you have a weak stomach).

To be honest, I am looking forward to seeing more of Megan Blair than I am of Eve and Joe. Eve, mourn and then GIVE IT UP!