Nocturnal Book Reviews

Breathtaking, gripping and keeping you on the edge of your seat, - which is what comes to mind when I think of Taylor Stevens' writing.

I've raved about The Informationist and The Innocent already, now it's time for The Doll which I enjoyed immensely. The book follows the same Vanessa Michael Munroe whose grip on sanity slips further and further away with each book.

First of all, this is a thriller like you've not read before. Vanessa is a bit like Dexter. Extreme violence, roaring darkness waiting to be let out and enormous control. Push her too far, that control slips, and you are dead.

Vanessa in The Informationist ventured to Africa to find a kidnapped girl; in The Innocent she saved a teenage daughter of a friend from a religious cult in Argentina, but in The Doll she is forced to do something she's been fighting all her life against - smuggle a kidnapped Hollywood starlet as a slave to a rich sadist from Zagreb to somewhere in Italy.

If she does it, the girl faces abuse, torture and death; if she doesn't do it her friends and remaning family will be taken out and killed one after another. The race has already started, and only Munroe's faith into the ability of her lover to find and save her friends and family on the other side of the ocean before she delivers the girl keeps her slipping into the abyss.

Taylor Stevens writes very dark, violent, extremely gripping books with an insane, enigmatic and immensely powerful heroine. She raises hard issues and let Vanessa cope with them while her awful past threatens to swallow her whole.

Even if nothing feels as powerful as the first book in the series, each of the follow ups packs a hell of a punch. Strongly recommended excellent read.