Eight Days to Live

February 22, 2010
Having injected vampires into 2009's Blood Game
, the previous Eve Duncan forensics thriller, bestseller Johansen introduces cryptotheology—the madeup religious stuff of Dan Brown—into this equally outlandish sequel. When Jane MacGuire, Eve's adopted daughter, exhibits her paintings at a Paris gallery, one of Jane's pieces, a creepy portrait titled Guilt
, prompts a charge of blasphemy from a dangerous cult. Nailing the dead body of one of Jane's friends to a cross shows the cult members mean business. Last seen in 2006's Killer Dreams
, John MacDuff and Jock Gavin show up at Jane's door to protect her. Later Seth Caleb, the mysterious is-he-or-isn't-he vampire from Blood Game
, joins the team. An action-packed search to uncover Jane's link to the cult and find a priceless religious artifact takes Jane and company across Europe—a journey that allows little focus on Eve and even less on her trademark forensic sculpting. 500,000 first printing.

March 1, 2010
While Eve Duncan (first introduced in the more procedural "Face of Deception") is present for parts of this thriller, the action focuses on her adopted daughter, Jane Maguire, and the psychopathic men determined to kill her. The why has something vaguely to do with a painting that Jane created from a dream image that connects to a prophecy and a cult that dates back to the time of Christ. In the meantime, Jane must struggle to stay one step ahead of the killers with the help of two strong but silent assassinsone who works for the CIA, the other who has some sort of extra ability to boil a person's blood from the inside out. VERDICT Johansen's latest is more than a little over the top with the villainous villains and secret sacrificesthink "The Da Vinci Code" crossed with an Anne Stuart romantic suspense novel, and you'll have a sense of the plot and tone. Not that that will be a bad thing for all readers. Fans of Stuart's amoral heroes and those who still follow Johansen will probably pick this one up. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 12/09; 500,000-copy first printing.]Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2010
Although billed as an Eve Duncan Forensics Thriller, neither Eve nor forensics plays a big part in Johansens latest. Instead the focus is on Eves adopted daughter, Jane MacGuire, who has a successful art show at a Parisian gallery. But a painting titled Guilt has drawn some unwanted attention: the religious cult Sang Noir wants Jane dead. When the cult starts going after those closest to Jane, she turns to two strong, dangerous men: Jock, a trained assassin, and Seth, a hunter with psychic powers. Friction ensues between these two strapping guys as they fight to protect the globe-trotting Jane while she travels from Paris to Switzerland to Jerusalem in an attempt to find out why Sang Noir is so determined to kill her. Shes fighting an intense attraction to Caleb, even as she disapproves of his methods of extracting information, and when Eves life hangs in the balance, Jane finds herself crossing lines she never thought she would. Readers interested in hard forensic science will want to look elsewhere, but those receptive to paranormal abilities and religious mysteries will find much to enjoy in this page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)