Wow, is this book a page turner. When I finished the last page,
I said - that's a 5 star book for sure. Well, maybe not for sure. I have thought about it
a little bit over the last several days, and there are several things that happen that
don't make too much sense - why are the suspects so easily able to evade FBI surveillance?
Not everyone is guilty, but at times in the novel, some of the innocent ones take some
actions that ought to be explained. There are some coincidences too.
But I am quibbling! That was the wrong way to start this review,
complaining about a some loose ends - I didn't think about them when I was reading. I was
racing through the book at breakneck pace, eager to find out what happens next. Iles does
a great job and keeping the tension up.
Here is the background - Jordan Glass is a 40 year old famous
photographer - she has won a Pulitzer for her photographs. But now she is burnt out from
all her dangerous work in warzone, taking pictures of people in peril. So she goes to Hong
Kong to relax. Maybe shoot photos of landscapes. Jordan visits an art museum. Inside the
museum is a new exhibit of paintings called the Sleeping Women - but the nude women in the
paintings don't look asleep, they look dead - but it is kinda hard to be sure, because there
is a level of abstraction in the art. As Jordan looks at these uncomfortable images, she
notices a lot of the patrons are looking oddly at her. Consternation grows. Soon, she sees
a picture of another dead/sleeping woman on the wall, and no wonder all the men in the room
(there are no women) are staring at her. The woman in the painting is obviously her. Certainly
this is cause for alarm! We soon learn that Jordan has an identical twin sister named Jane, and just
18 months ago Jane was abducted in New Orleans and never seen again, and is now presumed
dead. Is this dead Jane in the photo? Are all these portraits made of other missing/dead
women???
Jordan immediately flees from Hong Kong (after getting some photos
of the art exhibit). She calls the men she knows from the FBI - during the futile investigation
for her missing sister, Jordan got to know several FBI guys quite well. Jordan's sister lived
in New Orleans, but the paintings on display in Hong Kong are presented by an art dealer
named Christopher Wingate, in New York. Jordan books a flight to New York, she wants to
confront him face to face, because she believes that if he recognizes her face (which is
identical to Jane's) she will be able to determine if he is the killer, accomplice, or perhaps
an innocent art dealer. The confrontation with Wingate is well done. He is sinister and
creepy and the peril to Jordan is extreme. There is another painting, a 20th painting in
the Sleeping Women line.
The scene shifts to New Orleans, where it turns out quite a few
women are missing. Is a serial killer at work? The FBI (nor anyone else) had not known
about the Sleeping Women exhibit in Asia - it was just luck that Jordan visited that showing
and that she recognized her sister. They FBI brings its best agents, and Jordan insists
on not being left out of the investigation this time (18 months ago, she felt cut out of
the loop while FBI searched for her sister.) All the suspects look quite suspicious.
That's all I will say about the plot. Iles appears to be a terrific
writer, and I see he has several other books that are highly praised. This one was quite
well done, I will try to look for more by this author.
