Hide Away

Starred review from February 15, 2016
Alfredo Salazar, a Mexican drug lord, seeks to kill 11-year-old Cara Delaney, the daughter of a rival drug gang leader, in bestseller Johansen’s outstanding 19th Eve Duncan novel (after 2015’s Shadow Play). Eve and her live-in lover and former FBI agent, Joe Quinn, agree to bring Cara from California to their Atlanta home for her protection. When Joe decides that Cara will be safer elsewhere, Eve takes the girl to Scotland, where Eve’s adopted daughter, Jane MacGuire, and Jane’s associates, including Lord MacDuff, are searching for ancient treasure buried in the remote reaches of the Highlands. Extracts from Jane’s dreams about Cira, MacDuff’s ancestor who purportedly hid a chest of gold coins, provide a mystical undercurrent. The suspense rises as Salazar and his henchmen get on Cara’s trail, and Joe knows that both Eve and Cara are in danger. This first-rate novel of romantic suspense will please Johansen’s many fans and newcomers alike. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

February 15, 2016
Forensic sculptor Eve Duncan's back in the game in perennial bestseller Johansen's latest bloody action thriller. Cara Delaney, an 11-year-old girl, is rescued by renowned forensic sculptor Eve Duncan and her lover, Joe Quinn, from the vicious killers employed by the Salazar drug cartel. Cartel killers have already murdered little Cara's sister, Jenny, and Elena, the nursemaid who ran away with Cara to protect her from further harm. Now that Elena is dead, along with cartel assassin James Walsh, Eve and Joe have taken the little girl in until her life becomes less precarious. A great many complications ensue: for one thing, Cara is the daughter of Juan Castino, another Mexican drug kingpin, and they must be careful not to attract his attention or he will try to get Cara back. Eve's afraid that Cara won't survive in the middle of a drug cartel war, particularly since an especially vile young killer, Franco, is hunting for them. After Eve makes a startling discovery, she and Cara go on the run and end up in the Scottish Highlands with Eve's adopted daughter, Jane, and some friends from past novels. Johansen fans will catch a veritable treasure trove of characters from her previous novels in this latest venture, with only the villains new to the strange world Eve inhabits. This book, like many of Johansen's novels, features a child genius (Cara plays the violin so beautifully the characters do everything but weep when they hear her) and a smattering of individuals boasting mystical abilities (an animal psychic; a man who has weird powers over other people's blood). There are a few action sequences, but mostly the characters talk a lot, many times in lengthy back story, making for an especially dull been-there-done-that reader experience. As in many of Johansen's novels, readers are left dangling when it comes to Cara's fate and must purchase the next one to find out what happens.

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January 1, 2016
In Johansen's latest tale about intrepid forensic-sculptor Eve Duncan, her protagonist runs afoul of rival Mexican drug lords Alfredo Salazar and Juan Castino when she rescues Castino's 11-year-old daughter, Cara, following the murders of Cara's sister and caregiver. In doing so, Eve puts herself, lover Joe Quinn, and Cara in the crosshairs of ruthless assassins who will go to the ends of the earth to eliminate threats to their cartels. And that is just what happens when Eve and Joe accept the offer from their adopted daughter, Jane, to bring Cara along on an archaeological expedition searching for ancient Roman treasure in Scotland's remotest Highlands region. Just as when she sheltered Jane years earlier, Eve feels a maternal protectiveness towards the innocent Cara that is heightened by her own recently discovered pregnancy and the suspicion that Cara's own mother may be the girl's worst enemy. With this new event about to unfold in Eve's life, Johansen brings a gentleness to her tough-as-nails heroine that will invigorate and intrigue loyal fans of this long-running series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2015

Forensic sculptor Eve Duncan joins her adoptive daughter in the Scottish Highlands to hunt for treasure. But she's also hiding a young girl named Cara Delaney, who has some nasty, determined enemies. With a one-day laydown on April 26.

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