EVIL WITHOUT A FACE – Jordan Dane
Sweet Justice Series – Book 1
Avon
ISBN: 978-0-06-147412-5
February 2009
Suspense

Russia; Alaska and Colorado, United States – Present Day

At his home in Providenya, Russia, the old man, pretending to be teenager Ivana Noskova from Chicago, types a message to just one more spoiled American teenager, encouraging her to run away from home...

Seventeen-year-old Nikki Archer has her duffel bag just about packed. She’s hidden it in the closet and she’s ready to leave the house for good. She and her new on-line friend, Ivana, have Nikki’s escape out of Alaska planned down to the tiniest detail. Nikki can’t wait to get away from her controlling mother, Susannah. And even Ivana’s father has agreed to help her run away to a better life in Chicago. Nikki will board a plane in Anchorage and then fly straight to Chicago where Mr. Noskova and Ivana will meet her. And, Mr. Noskova has even arranged an appointment with his friend at a top modeling agency! Nikki will have a new job and a new life, far away from the clutches of her mother.

Fugitive Recovery Agent Jessica Beckett just missed capturing scumbag Lucas Baker – again. The man left her pretty beat up after she fell out of his speeding van, but Jessica got away with his laptop, a major coup. Baker’s whole life, or at least his sleazy activities, will be inside the electronic files. Now all she has to do is keep her ill-gotten booty away from the cops until she has time to crack the hard drive. Should be a piece of cake for her new assistant, Seth Harper. The kid is a computer geek and an absolute genius. Jessica has been trying to nail Lucas Baker for some time. She’s positively certain Baker is involved in a sex slavery ring. She wants to put him out of business for good, maybe even learn whom he takes his orders from. Jessica has too many vivid memories that pound at her consciousness day after day. These horrific memories of her own abduction and being a prisoner for the twisted pleasure of another are the catalysts that keep her in relentless pursuit of these evildoers. The incident that marked the rest of her life occurred when she was very young, but out of the experience, Jessica found her friend Sam, who was there to help her escape the evil kidnapper.

Samantha Cooper is now a Vice Detective in the Chicago Police Department. She’s aiming for a promotion to Homicide, and the trouble her friend Jessica gets into isn’t going to get her there anytime soon. Not if she has to cross her superiors one too many times to help Jessica out of her ongoing dilemmas. But their friendship goes back to childhood, and Sam can’t refuse Jessica. She will stand by her, no matter what.

Payton Archer, former pro-football player for the Chicago Bears, lives his life from day to day in Alaska, mostly in a drunken haze. But Payton would do anything for his sister Susannah and her daughter, Nikki. When he learns about Nikki's disappearance, Payton is beside himself after several agonizing hours with no word of his niece's fate. But with the discovery that Nikki has flown on a jet out of Anchorage and is bound for Chicago, Payton and his friend, Joseph Tanu, a retired Alaska State Trooper, are on their way across the United States to find her.

EVIL WITHOUT A FACE is a spine tingling tale of suspense, and details the horrendous crimes of people who prey on innocent children. Jessica Beckett relives her own childhood abduction every hour of every day, fighting nightmares that plague her constantly. She’s on a mission. As a bounty hunter, Jessica has vowed to put each and every scumbag who deals in human flesh behind bars, even if she has to break the law to do it. And when she unwittingly stumbles upon an international ring of flesh peddlers and connects them to Nikki Archer's disappearance, Jessica is determined to find Nikki before it’s too late.

This thrilling novel is the playground for many secondary characters. These lively people, some sinister and some innocent, all bring the tiniest details into a web of an intricately woven story. The criminals who are behind an organization called Globe Harvest, Ivan Krylov and Stanislav Petrovin, are just the tip of the iceberg in a huge ring of flesh peddlers. Alexa Marlow, an avenging angel from a watchdog group called The Sentinels, is on hand to help Jessica, even though Jessica is unaware of her presence most of the time. Payton and Jessica strike up a friendship which later becomes a romance, giving us new insights into Jessica’s horrendous past. This story is at times gruesome, and the pages deal with the frightening scenarios that often befall missing children, so squeamish readers should be warned.

All in all, EVIL WITHOUT A FACE is a splendid thriller and the first novel in a new series by suspense author Jordan Dane. Book two in The Sweet Justice Series comes to us in November 2009: THE WRONG SIDE OF DEAD. Even though some of the subject matter in EVIL WITHOUT A FACE is hard to deal with, I am looking forward to the next book in this fabulous new adventure series. The main characters, Jessica and Payton, have left us wondering where their relationship is going, and I can’t wait to see what becomes of Jessica’s friend Samantha and her geeky new assistant, the man-of-many-mysteries, Seth Harper.

You don’t want to miss EVIL WITHOUT A FACE!

Diana Risso