Count to Ten

Title: Count to Ten

Author: Karen Rose

Genre: Crime, thriller, mystery

Rating: A

Blurb: Abandoned to the foster-care system, two young brothers end up in an unimaginable hell. When one dies, the other vows revenge on those responsible.

A fire investigator

Chicago Fire Department veteran Reed Solliday is sickened. An autopsy has revealed that a young girl found in the wreckage of an explosion was raped and murdered before fire ripped through the house. Solliday must now join forces with the police if they are to find the killer...

A detective

Determined to bury herself in work after her partner is shot, Mia Mitchell is immediately confronted by her most challenging case - an arsonist who has escalated from fire to rape and murder.

What will happen when their lives collide?

Count to ten and watch their worlds explode.

Opinion: A really excellent read, and only the tiniest bit hampered by the predictable romance line of the novel (the two characters always get together in the end *sigh*). Still, the thrill bit was every bit as absorbing and I was up late into the night trying) and failing - through no fault of the novel) to finish the book. The morning after, I grabbed the book as soon as humanely possible, continued reading, and was spooked for the rest of the day, having been heightened to a new feeling of paranoia. ;)

Character development was OK in the novel - I liked the way they interacted although really, don't you think the tough-female-cop-with-a-bad-past has been overused? Still, I'm the typical gal who enjoys such stories. D:

The murderer/arsonist cuts a swath of dead bodies through the novel, and sometimes you can't help but go, "No, don't kill him/her!" but the wish never comes true. Well, almost never. You can't help but feel sorry for the people he kills because for me, death is a very personal issue (although I have no problem writing the deaths of my own characters D:). Karen Rose is my new author addiction and I highly recommend that you hunt down this book and have a read.

~rage-chan

Quicksand

Title: Quicksand

Author: Iris Johansen

Genre: Mystery, thriller

Rating: A-

Blurb: "Do you still miss your little Bonnie?"

This one sentence, spoken by a madman in an anonymous phone call, is all it takes to drag Eve Duncan right back to that horrifying day when her only daughter vanished without a trace. Since that day, her life has become an obsession to find Bonnie's remains and put the pain of her death at rest. However, one man wants nothing more than to prevent that from happening. He is every woman's waking nightmare: a brilliant, ruthless killer whose hunting ground stretches from coast to coast. But taunting Eve Duncan might be his first and last mistake...

For Eve is armed with more than just her talent as a forensic sculptor and her fierce protective nature. She brings with her former Navy SEAL Joe Quinn, an Atlanta detective who will do whatever it takes to bring Eve some kind of peace, even if he has to lie to her to do it.

Eve's only salvation may be through the mysterious skills of another woman whose chilling talent leaves her as tormented as Eve - and as driven to bring this monster to justice. But when lives are in danger, every step could be a trap, and every inch of solid ground seems to be shifting under their feet. And this killer wants nothing more than to lure Eve further and further into his swamp of madness...

Opinion: Quicksand is the latest in the Eve Duncan series, and sequel to Stalemate which was featured earlier. :) I really enjoy Iris Johansen novels because she writes very simply, but one thing which I find rather disappointing is that the plots are recurring. I can easily predict the ending of the novels and the way the plot will progress, and that's saying something for someone as dense as I am.

That said, she's not all dull and boredom. There is a slight twist of anticipation throughout the novel that keeps you reading and reading. The characters are well-developed, although Eve's anguish is beginning to grate away at me because, well, I keep expecting a fantastic discovery about her daughter and when I get to the end of the book, I feel all flat and disappointed because no, the leads were all false and therefore they are back to square one.

~rage-chan