Mysteries Galore.com

Reviewed by Allen Hott

Eve Duncan is back in Blood Game and still has not reconciled her mind to the disappearance and probable murder years ago of Bonnie, her young daughter. In this book Johansen not only weaves Bonnie into the overall texture of the story but also actually makes her into a fairly large character.

Duncan’s friend, Megan Blair, fears that some of her facilitator “skills” may have been passed on to Eve. They and Joe Quinn, Eve’s husband, were working on a case of missing, murdered children. During the excavating Megan had been injured and knocked unconscious. She feared that during that time she may have touched Eve or Joe and inadvertently made them also able to see spirits. It is not the thing that any of them would have wanted. Eve tells her not to worry but she doesn’t realize that Joe has in fact had some strange happenings occur to him recently.

Joe is a former FBI agent and present police officer in Atlanta so he is not too easily perturbed. He continues his work and puts the occurrences aside as a product of overwork.

Both Eve and Joe are shocked when they hear that an old nemesis of Eve’s appears to be back on the scene. Kevin Jelak was the man who killed the man who killed Eve’s daughter. It was not done for retaliatory reasons but because he was vying with the man for the right to go after Eve for her “rich and desired” blood.

Into the picture comes Jane who is Eve and Joe’s adopted daughter and who has returned to the states from her sojourn in Europe pursuing her art career. And now at the same time comes Seth Caleb also from Europe. His job is to hunt down Kevin Jelak. It seems that Jelak became involved with a family of vampires or at least wannabees. Caleb works as an aide to authorities in tracking down and ridding the world of these folks.

Joe Quinn becomes deeply involved in the hunt for Jelak because there have been several murders in the Atlanta area wherein the victims were not only killed but they had had their throats slit and blood was taken from them. In several instances a ritualistic goblet was left in various places and these goblets contained the blood of the victims.

There are many twists and turns as Blood Game works its way to the climax. And as usual Johansen builds chases and suspense into the body of the story. A well written novel although not really much of a mystery. Everything is presented early on and no one is left in the dark trying to figure out who is the murderer.