Eve Duncan Books in Order: How to read Iris Johansen’s Series?

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Eve Duncan is a fictional forensic sculptor and the main protagonist of the suspense thriller series written by American author Iris Johansen. Eve Duncan is a tragic figure at first. After her beloved daughter vanishes, she survives by immersing herself in her work. Eve is known for being the best in her elite field. As a forensic sculptor, she rebuilds faces from fragments of skull bones. She helps to put a name to a face, to identify missing people, and to solve crimes.

How to read the Eve Duncan Series in Order?

The Eve Duncan book series is composed of standalone novels, except for three self-contained trilogies. Those are singled out in the list below.

  1. The Face of Deception – After her daughter vanishes, Eve Duncan survives by immersing herself in her work. The best in her elite field at rebuilding faces from fragments of skull bones, she helps to put a name to a face, to identify missing children. It is Eve’s way of coming to terms with her personal nightmare. But more terror lies ahead when she accepts a job from billionaire John Logan. Beneath Eve’s gifted hands, a face begins to emerge from the skull he has given her to reconstruct-a face that no one was ever meant to see.
  2. The Killing Game – The killer knows Eve Duncan all too well. He knows that as one of the nation’s top forensic sculptors she’ll insist on identifying the nine skeletons unearthed on a bluff near Georgia’s Talladega Falls. He knows she won’t be able to resist the temptation of believing that one of those skeletons might be her daughter’s. But that is only the beginning of the killer’s sadistic game.
  3. The Search – As part of an elite K-9 search and rescue team, Sarah Patrick and her golden retriever, Monty, have a gift for finding what no one else can. But their latest assignment is not like the others. This time Sarah is being forced to take part in a deadly mission … by a man who knows enough about her past to ensure her cooperation. Billionaire John Logan’s top-secret venture has been sabotaged, its facilities destroyed, and its handpicked staff massacred. The sole survivor is being held for ransom.
  1. Body of Lies – Eve Duncan has finally found peace from her own tragic past. Then a stunning series of seemingly unrelated events turns Eve’s new world upside down. Now, in a special government facility, she takes on the project of identifying the victim’s skeleton. But she hasn’t even begun when another death occurs.
  2. Dead Aim – When a dam breaks in Arapahoe Junction, Colorado, celebrated photojournalist Alex Graham is once more at the site doing more than just snapping pictures-she is in the mud with a shovel digging for survivors. She finds more than she bargained for. Billionaire financier John Logan has his own reasons for protecting Alex, and these reasons alone are likely to get her killed.
  3. Blind Alley – Eve Duncan is working on the skull of a newly discovered Jane Doe, her face destroyed beyond recognition. But whoever killed this poor girl wasn’t trying to hide her identity. The plan is far more horrifying. As the face begins to appear under Eve’s skilled hands, she gets the shock of her life: The victim is someone she knows all too well. Someone who isn’t dead. Yet.
  1. Countdown – After a shocking attack shatters her world in an instant, Jane MacGuire is determined to find out who is after her, without the help of her adoptive parents, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan and her Joe Quinn–because whoever is after her won’t hesitate to hurt those she loves the most. Now Jane will go on the run with the only man who may be more dangerous than those who are pursuing her.
  2. Stalemate – One of the world’s most wanted men, little is really known about Luis Montalvo except that he is extraordinarily dangerous and that he never takes no for an answer. Now he wants Eve Duncan’s help in the worst way. For he believes they have something in common.
  3. Quicksand – Do you still miss your little Bonnie? This one sentence, spoken by a male voice in anonymous phone call, is all it takes to drag Eve Duncan right back to that horrifying moment years ago when her only daughter vanished without a trace. Since then, Eve’s life has become an obsession to find her daughter’s remains. Only one man knows the truth about what happened to Bonnie. But taunting Eve might be his first and last mistake…
  1. Blood Game – When a Georgia senator’s daughter is found murdered, and her body drained of blood, Eve Duncan is drawn into the web of Kevin Jelak – a serial murderer who is on Eve’s short list of killers who might know something about her missing daughter Bonnie. When a goblet of blood is found in Eve’s refrigerator, she knows the taunting is over…
  2. Eight Days to Live – It all begins with a painting called Guilt. Eve Duncan’s daughter, Jane, has no idea why she painted the portrait of the chilling face that now hangs in a Paris gallery. But those who belong to a powerful cult―one that dates back to the time of Christ―know both the face and the significance behind it… They believe that Jane must die.
  3. Chasing the Night – A CIA agent’s two-year-old child was stolen in the night as a brutal act of vengeance. Now, eight years later, this torment is something Catherine Ling awakens to every day. Her friends, family, and colleagues tell her to let go, move on, accept that her son is never coming back. But she can’t. Catherine needs to find someone as driven and obsessed as she is to help her- and that person is Eve Duncan.

Eve, Quinn and Bonnie are to be read together, this is a trilogy.

  1. Eve – After teaming up with Agent Ling to find her missing son, Eve Duncan and Catherine share a bond forged by their mutual pain. Now, Catherine challenges Eve with a name: John Gallo. A man from Eve’s past. A man, seemingly raised from the dead, whose whereabouts are unknown. Could Gallo be the missing piece to the puzzle that has haunted Eve for years?
  2. Quinn – With the help of CIA agent Catherine Ling, Joe Quinn makes a shocking discovery that sheds new light on young Bonnie’s abduction and puts him squarely in the crosshairs of danger. Eve Duncan’s first love, John Gallo, a soldier supposedly killed in the line of duty, is very much alive―and very much a threat. Now, as their search takes them deeper and deeper into a web of murder and madness, Joe and Eve must confront their most primal fears…
  3. Bonnie – With the help of Joe Quinn and Catherine Ling, Eve Duncan has come closer than ever to the truth. But the deeper she digs, the more she realizes that Bonnie’s father is a key player in solving this monstrous puzzle. And that Bonnie’s disappearance was not as random as everyone had always believed . . .
  1. Sleep No More – Eve Duncan knows what it’s like to be haunted by the past. Now, as she strives to begin anew, she finds herself on another missing-persons case. A woman named Beth Avery, who has been locked away in a psychiatric facility for years, has vanished. And her connection to Eve is deeper than she can imagine.

Taking Eve, Hunting Eve and Silencing Eve are also to be read together, this is another trilogy.

  1. Taking Eve – Jim Doane wants the same kind of answers that Eve Duncan always longed for. His twenty-five-year-old son may or may not be dead, and he has only burned skull fragments as possible evidence. But he cannot go to the police for answers without exposing his dark past, so instead he chooses a bold step to find the truth―one that takes Eve down a twisted path of madness and evil and into the darkest heart of her own history.
  2. Hunting Eve – Abducted by the deranged father of a serial killer and forced to reconstruct his dead son’s skull from bone fragments, Eve Duncan is running for her life. She must use all of her strength, courage, and wits to survive this madman’s obsession. But Jim Doane is not the only player in the game.
  1. Silencing Eve – Eve Duncan appears to have been killed―that’s what everyone attending her funeral thinks, at least. But even if Eve is still alive, how much longer can this charade continue before she falls into even greater danger? CIA agent Catherine Ling will waste no time trying to find out.

Shadow Play, Hide Away, and Night and Day are also to be read together, this is another trilogy.

  1. Shadow Play – When a California sheriff asks Eve Duncan for help with reconstructing the skull of a girl whose body has been buried for eight years, his fierce investment in the case puzzles her. But Eve experiences an immediate connection with the girl she calls Jenny, and vows to solve the murder and bring closure to the crime.
  2. Hide Away – Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn have sworn to protect an innocent young girl, Cara Delaney, whose enemies are getting closer by the hour. Weighing her own health against Cara’s safety, Eve decides they must disappear―and so she turns to her daughter, Jane MacGuire, for an unexpected solution. To be concluded in Night and Day.
  1. Night and DayThe conclusion of the Hide Away story. Despite all precautions, Cara is taken, Eve Duncan must hunt down the very people who want to kill her. At a time in her life when she has more at stake than ever before, Eve doesn’t hesitate to put it all on the line in a pulse-pounding mission of rescue and survival. . .while a brutal enemy, who watches her every move, lies in wait.
  2. Mind Game – Scotland holds a treasure that Jane MacGuire has been hunting for years. But as she scours the Highlands in search of it, she’s plagued by dreams of a girl in danger. Things are further complicated when Seth Caleb comes back into Jane’s life.
  3. Shattered Mirror – Eve Duncan receives a cryptic package containing a skull and a two-sided mirror. She is determined to reconstruct the skull and uncover the mystery of the person’s identity, and when she does, the face of a beautiful woman begins to emerge. But who is she?
  1. Dark Tribute – Despite her tragic childhood, violin prodigy Cara Delaney has finally found peace. If only Jock Gavin, Cara’s lifelong friend and a man with his own twisted history, would come back into her life, everything would be perfect. But the carefully constructed world Cara has built for herself is suddenly threatened when she is kidnapped by a mysterious man trying to settle a score against her family.
  2. Smokescreen – A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan’s doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heart wrenching story: half the villagers have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve’s help to get closure and begin to heal. But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill’s plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot.
  3. The Persuasion – Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn are about to give Seth Caleb their trust for the most important duty of his life: keeping their daughter, Jane, safe at any cost. Her talent as an artist has caught the attention of a brilliant psychopath with a violent past.
  1. The Bullet – Diane Connors is a dedicated doctor with the world’s biggest secret, a discovery that could have shocking global ramifications. But while conducting private research trials, word has gotten out. The wrong people have heard the news and now want to hide Diane’s achievement for their own ends. With nowhere else to turn, Diane finds herself on the doorstep of the last man she wants to ask for help: her ex-husband, Joe Quinn. Joe has remarried, and he and his wife, Eve Duncan, seem blissfully happy in their quiet, rural life until they are faced with the challenge of risking it all-even their marriage itself-for the greater good …
  2. A Face To Die For – Archaeologist Riley Smith has been obsessed with Helen of Troy since she was a small girl, trailing her professor father all over the world in search of the tomb of the world’s most beautiful woman. Professor Smith put his life on the line to prove that, instead of a myth, Helen had been a living, breathing queen. Riley seeks the help of forensic sculptor Eve Duncan, who has the unusual skills necessary to recreate the face that launched a thousand ships-revealing Helen’s true appearance for the first time in history. But convincing Eve to take on the challenge will be difficult because her efforts could come at great personal risk to her and her family…
  3. Captive – Eve Duncan’s daughter, Jane MacGuire, is enjoying a period of domestic bliss as she focuses on her art and her partner Seth Caleb uses his unique abilities as an agent for the MI6 intelligence service. But when Seth crosses crime lord Hugh Bohdan, he incurs the wrath of one of the world’s most powerful criminal empires…one whose tentacles reach across the globe and even to the idyllic Scottish retreat where Jane is working.

  1. The Survivor – When archeologist Riley Smith comes to ask Eve Duncan for help, Eve has to say no. Traveling halfway around the world on a dangerous quest is not her expertise as a forensic sculptor. But Eve is intrigued by the prospect of an isolated island that holds a secret locked in time. Traveling to Southeast Asia, Riley is aware of the threat from treasure hunters who are already searching and have no qualms about killing to get what they want. When she successfully evades them and finds the perfectly preserved body of a female warrior, it is just what she needs to entice Eve to help unlock the mystery.

The Eve Duncan reading order is not a short one, don’t forget to bookmark this article to be sure to not miss anything. You may also want to check out the Temperance Brennan series.

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