I Can See You - Softcover

Rose, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446563153 ISBN 13: 9780446563154

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 2009

Synopsis

Evie Wilson was the victim of the villain in DON'T TELL, an assault which resulted in paralysis on one side of her face. After her injury, Evie retreated into the virtual realm, seeking refuge from the public eye by interacting with online friends. Now, with the help of a surgeon, Evie's face is restored and she is ready to return to the real world. However, she remains connected to the Internet for her graduate thesis on using the virtual world as therapy to improve self-esteem. She has become an online shopkeeper who sells faces and bodies to users interested in building a new avatar on a website called "Shadowland." In her new role, Evie maintains "surveillance" over her test subjects to ensure they don't become too caught up in the intoxicating virtual realm.

Meanwhile, homicide detective Noah Webster has been investigating a string of suspicious suicides that he believes are connected murders. Noah's investigation leads him to Evie when one of her online test subjects is found dead of apparent suicide, but Evie believes otherwise.

Evie is shocked to find herself drawn to someone for the first time in many years and she's reluctant to trust Noah. However, he's the only one who believes her story about the suspicious death of her test subject, and he soon discovers that many of the apparent suicides in his case had avatars in "Shadowland."

As murder victims connected to the website begin to appear more frequently, Noah asks Evie to be his virtual guide in the investigation. However, they don't realize that the killer is closer than they think--and that he holds a special grudge against Evie.

About this title

Review:

Karen Rose made something of an impact with her debut thriller Don't Tell in 2003. In that book, her protagonist was Eve Wilson, forced to undergo a hideous ordeal. She is savagely attacked and left for dead. Her badly mutilated face requires considerable surgery, and she has virtually lost the use of one of her hands. Alfred Hitchcock was well known for putting his heroines through the most extreme torments, but he had nothing on Karen Rose -- and if what Eve Wilson endured in that first book was terrifying, the trials she faces in the new book by Rose, I Can See You, puts her earlier experiences in the shade.

Eve has moved to Minneapolis where she is holding down a job as a bartender at a place popular with the police. In the bar, she encounters detective Noah Webster, and finds herself attracted to him. But Eve's past has left her with deep emotional scars, and she's not even prepared to consider the possibility of a new relationship. Noah, also, is attracted to her, but is still suffering from the loss of his wife and child, and has turned to alcoholism as a refuge. They are a damaged couple. But Eve is also a student taking a degree in abnormal psychology, and her speciality subject is the pathology of serial killers. She has also decided that she wants to help those who have become addicted to a virtual role-playing site called Shadowland, in which players configure new identities and faces. But she encounters a sinister and ruthless killer who appears to have almost total omnipotence -- and his ability to second-guess the police makes him well-nigh untouchable. Eve is once again to venture into the furthest reaches of terror.

I Can See You quickly demonstrates that Karen Rose has lost none of the skills so evident in her debut novel, and the orchestration of suspense in this book is as adroit as before. While the serial killer narrative is in danger of being sorely overused these days, Rose distracts our attention from this possible pitfall by drawing with skill the relationship between her two damaged protagonists, Eve and the troubled detective Noah. You may feel you’ve read one too many novels about omniscient criminals, but you would be doing yourself a disservice by ignoring this one. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

"Rose's spine-tingling 10th thriller...keeps the action popping." Publishers Weekly"

"Rose's spine-tingling 10th thriller...keeps the action popping."--Publishers Weekly

"4 ? stars! Readers get a top-notch and diabolically clever suspense tale...and a tender love story to boot. It's definitely one for your keeper shelf!"--Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine

"4 stars! Readers get a top-notch and diabolically clever suspense tale...and a tender love story to boot. It's definitely one for your keeper shelf!"--Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0446563153
• ISBN 13: 9780446563154
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 895