These Detectives Can Teach You Something
Book review of 20/20 and Lifesign by Carl Goodman
Those who have been following my book reviews know by now I love a good detective. It’s amazing to see the different ways authors tell a story, how they allow the lead detective to unravel the mystery of a crime, and share personal lives which run like a red thread through the series of books.
A book should entertain me, and evoke feelings, even if those are only that I feel relaxed while listening.
And occasionally, a book teaches me something I didn’t know, which happened when I listened to 20/20 and Lifesign.
About the author, Carl Goodman
There is very little to be found online about this author, of which 20/20 is his first crime thriller.
He lives in Surrey with his wife, and is a designer and media consultant, and has twice won BAFTA awards for his interactive projects. Drawing the line at commuting, he has worked with companies and universities across Europe and the USA on government funded programmes.
Carl Goodman loves writing — crime and science fiction — enjoys hard-hitting contemporary stories with dark and visceral themes. Sometimes the research he does for his stories scares him to death.
This author is also passionate about photography and astronomy, and he sometimes tries to combine the two.
Another book by Carl Goodman is Black Sands.
20/20
Eva Harris accidentally became a Detective Inspector (DI). Superior with computers, the police recruited her, and in this first book about her, she investigated a murder, where the killer removed the eyes of his victims. At first, the police thought The Eye Slicer had changed his modus operandi, but then Eva realized there were two murderers at large.
These were not the only two cases she investigated. Alongside these, she had two other cases, of which one was drug-related, and the drug lord desperately wanted her dead. He had tried before, and Eva was even dead for eight minutes, but he attempted killing her again. And again.
The unfolding story kept me in suspense. To be honest, the closer Eva got to a solution for the murders, the more I squirmed and was convinced I would never have surgery done on my eyes!
Most detectives deal with only one case at a time, but I loved how this book wove a complicated net. That’s not the only complex thing in the story. Eva’s personality is also quite tricky, making her character stand out more than her only being the main one in the book.
If you like detective stories with depth, then this one is definitely for you.
Lifesign
In Lifesign, Eva Harris almost accidentally got to investigate a crime, when a youngster in the neighborhood alerted her to the bodies he had found. Not only bodies, but also organs. Someone had been experimenting, and in the process tortured the captured people to death.
Eva’s investigation even took her to Germany, where we learn about body modifications, implants with tracking devices, and the human growth hormone. Who doesn’t want to live forever, right?
Sometimes the information in the book bordered on being too complicated, but as the story went on, there were more explanations. After all, Eva and her team needed to understand the science too in order to do their investigation, which took a long time to lead them to a suspect.
What unfolded when they apprehended their suspect can only be described as horror.
The threat of the drug lord still haunted Eva in this book, and that story is not completed yet. I suspect it will continue in the next book about Eva Harris.
Two ‘different’ detectives
Where these two books can both be described as detectives, they differ from many others I have read, because of the extensive information in both, and the interesting cases Eva investigated. Not only did the author spin an intricate web in both books, but he also managed to keep me wanting more, wanting for Eva to catch the drug lord who constantly threatens her life.
I’m looking forward to the third book about Eva Harris!
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