I Can See You Book

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 ForshawRead More