Blind Alley, by Iris Johansen

Eve Duncan is a forensics sculptor. Law enforcement agencies and other organizations call on her when they have a skeleton with no identification. She can take the skull and apply basic principles of depth and alignment to the clay she fashions the face from. Her results are always accurate.

Joe Quinn is Eve's life partner. A detective for the Atlanta Police Department, he often works the same case as Eve. They live in Lake Cottage, on a beautiful lake in Georgia with their adopted daughter, Jane MacGuire, who is now seventeen. She was a street child but has become a well accomplished young woman.

Somewhere there is a serial killer. He takes women and strips their faces from them, while they are still alive. Mark Trevor is a Scotland Yard Inspector and is following the killer from England to Georgia. There are fireworks galore when Trevor and Eve, Joe and Jane meet and become entangled in the drama.

It seems the women who have been murdered have one thing in common - a resemblance to a woman named, Cira, who was an actress in the theater, 2000 years ago! Trevor knows Aldo, the killer, is coming for Jane MacGuire, who is the closest in resemblance to Cira, whose statues once populated palaces and great halls in Herculaneum and Pompeii before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

Jane is a practical young woman and takes no stock in Trevor's concern - until her dog, Toby is staked out in the woods and tormented. Jane loves Toby in a way only someone who has had reason not to trust people can love a pet. From there she is willing to do anything to bring Aldo out in the open.

Aldo is close. Jane can sense him in the woods beyond the cottage, and then he calls her on her cell phone. He threatens and taunts, leaving Jane in shock. She then realizes she must taunt and lure him into a trap to stop his murderous rage.

Trevor and Joe set up an elaborate trap that involves them going to Herculaneum and down into the tunnels that surround the lost city. Jane is frightened, but when Aldo tells her what he is going to do to Eve, she determines to stop him at all costs. They enlist the aid of a pompous relics collector. It would be great to say their plan worked and they caught Aldo before he could do more harm. . . but that isn't what happens.

The climatic ending is harrowing with twists and turns that keep the reader on the edge of their seat. The budding passion between Trevor and Jane smolders the pages. Blind Alley is exciting and gives the reader a look into the world of 2000 years ago. It is a book you won't put down until the last word on the last page. A great and riveting read for mystery lovers everywhere.