by Kay Hooper

This has been on my book pile for more than a year and it's only this vacation that I got the chance of reading it. Somehow it never failed me - in the sense that the story did agitate me to turn the pages and get no sleep.

Cassie Neill is bestowed with supernatural ability to tap into the minds of killers being hunted by the L.A. police - it seems with her help it is a gift but the backfire of this responsibility is a curse for her. When she made a huge error on a wrong forecast, causing the death of an innocent child, she makes up her mind to leave L.A. to move to a small town in North Carolina in the hope of a fresh start.

She is then startled with multiple killings in the town of Ryan's Bluff and so offered her help to solve the baffling case. Things get complicated when the sheriff didn't want to believe what she claims as 'precognition' and that she, herself, is a suspect responsible for the numerous crimes in town - some people have even believed that she was a 'witch'. The case moves rapidly, townspeople are panicking and the authority is getting desperate which leaves Cassie the burden to enter the killer's mind the soonest time possible.

I wasn't upset due to the thickness of the book, in fact the story kept me on a good pace while maintaining suspense. The praises for this book lived up to my expectations, though I sometimes find myself rolling my eyes with how Cassie narrates her 'entry' to the killer's mind (the narration kinda pushed me off but it's okay). The height of the story's climax made me grip the book and feverishly read it until early morning: you will find yourself fallen for the red herrings thrown in the plot! But when the case of the serial killer in Ryan's Bluff was over, I felt a bit down for the thrill of the story because it somehow died as it swung the spotlight on romance.

Rating: 4 stars - supposedly I'm gonna make this 4 1/2 stars but because I'm not such a fan of suspense and love story mixed together (it rarely happens for me) I decided this better be just four out of five. If you love a good story to make you gasp in excitement of what's gonna happen next, here's the book you should try.

by Iris Johansen

This is my first hardbound experience of an Iris Johansen book. I haven't read any of her novels before, but this turned out pretty boring. I love forensics - I'm allured by it and its concepts but this was a letdown.

For one, the plot was simply weaved to tell a story. It did not really excite me except the fact that I have been quite a fan of Jane and Trevor's love story. I completely forgot that Jane was seventeen and Trevor was around more or less in his thirties, but he was always described as handsome (for a con man and a sleuth) so I bit the bait. At some point before halfway reading, I had an idea to dump it and read another book instead, but I wanted to finish the story as to satisfy my curiosity and leave no room for regret. Alas, I wasted my time because the ending had been so easy and fast-moving. It was hard at first to get myself to pace reading hardbounds (I think I have a weak link for them) but when I got near Blind Alley's half it seemed so easy and light.

There had been confusions in the story. Jane is too much to decide as an adult for a seventeen-year-old girl. I understand her relation to the nightmare and Cira story but it seems her parents are always at bay and she does things independently with Trevor most of the time, as if proving she can do on her own.

I did not like the over-all part: everything seemed to be too perfect and everyone seemed to be so skilled that it falls flat for a forensic mystery, but this had made me laugh, worry and feel smitten a bit. It really shouldn't be called an Eve Duncan Forensics Thriller but a Jane Duncan one. I think I wanted to read Countdown, but I'm hesitant about it. Blind Alley truly left me lost in blindness. The conclusion did not make up for what the narration lacked, in my opinion.

Rating: 2 stars