Even Eve Duncan Can’t Save Iris Johansen’s ‘Hide Away’ [REVIEW]

Eve Duncan hides a young girl in the Scottish highlands. But is it enough to keep her safe from her enemies?
(Photo designed by Rob Grom)

Iris Johansen’s Hide Away is the second installment in the author’s current trilogy that began with Shadow Play. Here, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn continue to protect a young girl named Cara Delaney from her sociopathic mother, Natalie Castino, and those on her payroll.

St. Martin’s Press

In order to do this, Duncan and Quinn take Cara to Scotland to join Eve’s daughter, Jane MacGuire, on a quest to find buried treasure, and with the hopes of concealing Cara’s whereabouts. But will the highlands prove remote enough to keep Cara’s enemies at bay?

I admit that while this plot is both plausible and intriguing, it isn’t compelling enough to warrant 336 pages. After the first few chapters, I began to lose interest in finishing the novel because I felt the plot simply moved too slowly. The fast-paced action, gripping suspense and white-knuckling intrigue I’ve come to expect from a Johansen novel were sorely missing in Hide Away.

Although a few tidbits of backstory about Jane and Eve are given, the novel can be really be summed up in a few sentences. Cara was hidden. Now Cara is captured. If you really want to find out what happens in this novel without reading every page, the synopsis can be found on page 318.

Johansen is a strong writer and typically one of my favorite authors. However, only the most loyal fan should pick up Hide Away, because it is sadly lackluster at best.

Iris Johansen
(Photo by Louis Tonsmeire)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Iris Johansen is the New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Play, The Perfect Witness, Live to See Tomorrow, and more. She began writing after her children went off to college and found her initial success in the early 1980s writing category romances.

In 1991, she started writing historical romance novels, withe the publication of The Wind Dancer. Then in 1996, she switched genres and turned to crime fiction. By November 2016, she had 17 consecutive New York Times bestselling novels under her belt. She has also collaborated with her son, Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist Roy Johansen, on numerous novels. Her daughter, Tamara, works as her research assistant.

Johansen lives with her husband just outside Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her home on the Web at IrisJohansen.com and like her on Facebook.

HIDE AWAY
By Iris Johansen
336 pgs. St. Martin’s Press. 2016. $27.99