by Iris Johansen
My, Iris Johansen can stack up the corpses. In her latest suspenser six victims lie dead from bombings and poisonings by page 5, with many more to come. It's enough to rattle even our heroine, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan, who reconstructs faces from anonymous skulls that she enjoys talking to.
Johansen's plots are tough on the stomach but too easy on the mind, with few taxing twists. A mess of characters—the shady senator, the sassy adolescent daughter, the fawning but rugged love interest—prove that chats with skulls or no, Johansen is no Shakespeare. (Bantam, $24.95)
Bottom Line: Out of shape
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