BODY OF LIES

The Mysterious Life of a Forensic Sculptor

By J.A. Hitchcock     July 31, 2002

Iris Johansen reminds me a lot of Kathy Reichs - their books are similar as far as a person involved in forensics (Temperence Brennan from the Reichs books is a forensic specialist) getting involved in a murder investigation/mystery and either losing someone during the course of the story, or avenging someone's death/injury.

Eve Duncan, the main character of BODY OF LIES, is a forensic sculptor - one of those people you may have seen on TV who can take a skull and "create" the face that used to be on it. This has helped identify many heretofore unknown murder victims (I particularly remember a case from "America's Most Wanted" a few years back).

Eve's background is that her only daughter had been missing, and presumed murdered for many years. Her boyfriend, Joe, an Atlanta detective, conducted searches and claimed he found her daughter's remains. Those bones are buried on her property and she thought she'd put them to rest. She'd even adopted a young girl named Jane, in her pre-teens and life seemed hunky-dory.

Then one day, some weird things happen to the dead daughter's grave and Eve discovers the bones in the grave are not her daughter's. She gets mad at Joe. Then, just coincidentally, she's asked to help recreate the face on a skull found in Baton Rouge. Angry at the betrayal, she travels to the good old South and finds herself immersed in not only figuring out who the skull belonged to, but who is trying to kill her in the process. First, Eve is poisoned, then chased, and more. She's like a cat with nine lives in this book.

She leaves Baton Rouge with the latest death threat, packing up the skull, a local reporter who is trying to get the ever-elusive Pulitzer Prize on what he feels is the biggest story ever involving the skull and who it might belong to and a mysterious man who is protecting her. Or is he?

From the Louisiana bayous to Atlanta, Eve must reconcile her differences with Joe to find out who is trying to kill her, and now her family; who the skull really belongs to; what or who the "Cabal" is and what they're trying to hide; and who is really buried in her daughter's grave.

This audiobook kept me in suspense from the beginning to the end - it's one of the few books where I wasn't disappointed with the ending. There was real closure, but a hint that there may be more Eve Duncan stories to come. I hope so!

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