Product Description

In Karen Rose's brilliant new thriller a killer is targeting the participants of an online role playing game called Shadowland.

Each of the victims is be-friended by the killer online. He then stalks them in real life, murdering them in the way that they worst fear. Eve Wilson, who we previously met in NOTHING TO FEAR, is researching the game as part of her thesis on how self-esteem is affected by violence. Now she must work with Detective Noah Webster to find the murderer before the killings escalate out of all control and Eve herself becomes a target.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2214 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-15
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Karen Rose made something of an impact with her debut thriller Don't Tell in 2003. In that book, her protagonist was Eve Wilson, forced to undergo a hideous ordeal. She is savagely attacked and left for dead. Her badly mutilated face requires considerable surgery, and she has virtually lost the use of one of her hands. Alfred Hitchcock was well known for putting his heroines through the most extreme torments, but he had nothing on Karen Rose -- and if what Eve Wilson endured in that first book was terrifying, the trials she faces in the new book by Rose, I Can See You, puts her earlier experiences in the shade.

Eve has moved to Minneapolis where she is holding down a job as a bartender at a place popular with the police. In the bar, she encounters detective Noah Webster, and finds herself attracted to him. But Eve's past has left her with deep emotional scars, and she's not even prepared to consider the possibility of a new relationship. Noah, also, is attracted to her, but is still suffering from the loss of his wife and child, and has turned to alcoholism as a refuge. They are a damaged couple. But Eve is also a student taking a degree in abnormal psychology, and her speciality subject is the pathology of serial killers. She has also decided that she wants to help those who have become addicted to a virtual role-playing site called Shadowland, in which players configure new identities and faces. But she encounters a sinister and ruthless killer who appears to have almost total omnipotence -- and his ability to second-guess the police makes him well-nigh untouchable. Eve is once again to venture into the furthest reaches of terror.

I Can See You quickly demonstrates that Karen Rose has lost none of the skills so evident in her debut novel, and the orchestration of suspense in this book is as adroit as before. While the serial killer narrative is in danger of being sorely overused these days, Rose distracts our attention from this possible pitfall by drawing with skill the relationship between her two damaged protagonists, Eve and the troubled detective Noah. You may feel you’ve read one too many novels about omniscient criminals, but you would be doing yourself a disservice by ignoring this one. --Barry Forshaw

About the Author
A former high school chemistry and physics teacher, Karen lives in Florida with her husband of twenty years and their children. When she's not writing, Karen enjoys traveling, karate and, although not a popular Florida pastime, skiing.

Customer Reviews

SUSPENSE + ROMANCE = COMPELLING READING
Even your shivers will have goose bumps when reading this frightening tale of a far too clever psycho who takes pleasure in killing. Not just killing, mind you, but torturing his victims first by making them endure their worst possible fear, whether it be fire, snakes or being buried alive. The question of how he has this information, who he is, and why he is doing it will keep readers glued (yes, he does glue his victims' eyes open) to I Can See You.

Author Rose brings back Eve Wilson who was mercilessly attacked and left for dead in the author's debut thriller (Don't Tell, 2003). Not only was she attacked but she was cut so severely that her face needed extensive surgical restoration and one hand was rendered almost useless. Nonetheless, what she suffered then is only prelude to what may befall her now.

Eve has gone to Minneapolis where she's found work as a bartender at a hangout for police. It was there that she first saw Noah Webster and was immediately attracted to him, but pushed this thought from her mind as she believed any relationship was forever out of the question for her. Noah is also attracted but still not fully recovered from the loss of his wife and child, and the years he spent in an alcoholic haze trying to forget. Two lost souls.

Eve is also a grad student working on a degree in abnormal psychology; the topic of her paper is "the pathology of serial killers." After spending years in the virtual world as she hid from the real world she wants to learn how to help those who have become addicted to role playing online at a site called Shadowland. There lonely people can choose faces, , play at gambling or dancing, even agree to meet someone they meet in the real world. A dangerous idea.

Rose loses no time in reeling readers in with an opening description of a murder so skillful, so carefully planned, so sadistic that it startles. Thus, we're introduced to the mysterious killer who not only sees all but knows all, and wants to make public fools of the police. His modus operandi is always the same, the women apparently die by hanging with a stool kicked over, their shoes positioned on the floor. He revels in their terror: "He learned long ago that their fear was far better than any drug, sending his orgasm into the stratosphere." Murder, you see, is a compunction with him; he not only derives pleasure from it but also sexual relief.

Noah is the detective in charge of the investigation of these deaths, and it soon seems that Eve may hold information that will help him. But, at what cost to her?

- Gail Cooke

EXCELLENT
As always with Karen Rose books, beleivable characters, excellent storyline and gripping plots. Loved this book.
The only bad thing about a Karen Rose book is finishing it and having to wait for the next one to come out.

Rose on top form
This books picks up on the story of Evie Wilson, first seen in "Don't Tell" and met again in "Nothing to Fear".
We also meet up again with other characters from the previous books. I like this aspect of Karen Roses writing, I often finish a book with the feeling that I would like to know what happens next in the lives of the characters, with Karen Rose you often find out.
In "I Can See You" Eve is the central character, she is a grad student doing a thesis on people who prefer to live in the virtual world than the real world. Once again her life becomes threatened when women in her study become the victims of a serial killer. In her efforts to help the police uncover the killers identity she sets her self up as one of his victims.
As with all of Roses books there is a romance, this time between Eve and Noah Webster the lead detective, both tortured souls. If I have any critisism of the book it is that I found the will they, won't they element irritating when it was obvious that of course they will! However this didn't detract from the can't put down till I finish grip that this book held me in.