And Then You Die...: Amazon.ca: Iris Johansen, Megan Gallagher: Books

Product Description

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As a photojournalist, Bess Grady is far more comfortable viewing life through her camera lens than firsthand; the extra distance makes it easier to accept life's atrocities. Still recovering from an assignment on which she witnessed the massacre of an entire Croatian orphanage, Bess accepts an easy assignment from a travel magazine to photograph a small village in Mexico and brings her sister along for fun. What awaits her is worse than she ever could have imagined: everyone in the village has been killed by a deadly poison. After rescuing the only survivor, Bess and her sister split up. Bess finds herself captured by the villain who seems to have plotted the horrible destruction. Her sister has disappeared, and the only hope Bess has to save her is to trust a man she believes to be a murderer. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

From Ugly Duckling to best-selling author: Johansen follows up with the story of photojournalist Bess Grady, who stumbles upon a terrorist plot while vacationing in Mexico.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

81 Reviews

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(20)

Average Customer Review

3.1 out of 5 stars (81 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a great romance, not a great thriller..., Jun 30 2004

By

Veronica (England) - See all my reviews

Ce commentaire est de: And Then You Die (Mass Market Paperback)

And Then You Die is marketed as a novel of suspense, involving romance and action. On both these counts I feel the book fails to deliver. The characters, whilst interesting, are never fleshed out enough to make them truly likeable. The plot has several twists but it seemed almost mechanical to me.

The lead characters Bess and Kaldak are in many places scarcely likeable. Bess is grieving after the death of her sister but she is frequently illogical and abrasive. She basically decided that she didn't like how the CIA were protecting her and that she 'knew best'. Doubtlessly we were supposed to think that she was feisty and determined, but she came across as difficult and tiresome. The result of her interferance was that she constantly put Kaldak and other agents in danger for her own motives. Bess became insufferably bossy, telling everyone else how to do their jobs although she had no military / law enforcement background. Her constant protestations of 'I'm not hungry' and 'I don't want to eat/sleep etc' had me wanting to toss the book aside to grab the biscuit tin.

Kaldak was violent towards Bess at their first couple of meetings, hitting her in the face and knocking her unconscious on several occasions, which I found disturbing. Throughout the whole novel there was barely a proper physical description of Kaldak beyond the word 'intimidating'. Kaldak, in fact, describes himself as ugly - I would have preferred it if he was described in more detail so I could have seen him clearly in my mind.

A plus point was the dialogue which was fast and furious and very realistic, but the lack of description around the dialogue meant that we never find out much depth or background to the story and characters - it all seemed very one-dimensional, like a Hollywood blockbuster that has a time limit of an hour and a half.

Overall I don't think that And Then You Die is a great action novel, and the romance certainly falls short of what I was looking for. At one point Kaldak tells Bess that "If I'd needed to do it, I would have killed you, your sister, and your guide." To me, these were not the words of the protective, alpha male type that I like to read about, they had crossed the borderline into something less noble and vaguely alarming. Kaldak had certainly been damaged by his tragic past, more damaged than I felt comfortable with. Unfortunately the best part in the whole book was probably the last couple of pages, which seemed heartfelt and were a nice conclusion to it all.

JoAnne

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not a bad book, April 12 2004

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T. C Gerlach "pootiboo" (Altoona, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

Ce commentaire est de: And Then You Die (Mass Market Paperback)

A photographer and her sister go to a city for a photo shoot and everyone there is dead. Next you find out what caused it. To me the book seemed like nothing but one chase scene after another. And of course there has to be the inevitiable romance in there. Not a bad book, but not great and the characters were certainly very shallow and undeveloped.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Painful to finish, Mar 31 2004

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Vie Na (Vienna, Austria) - See all my reviews

Ce commentaire est de: And Then You Die (Mass Market Paperback)

Unfortunately, I was brought up to finish the books I started and in this case, it is very painful. In her first draft for the book, Ms Johansen probably had a 13 year old girl in puberty cast as the herione, who always just says "no", "I do not want to eat", "I do not want to sleep", etc. The herione in this book is so stupid but she always knows better, telling the entire CIA what to do next, although she has no idea what is going on, yes, very probable plot indeed. Well, I have about 100 pages to go, wish me luck!

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth borrowing from the library at the very least
Ok, so the main characters have some baggage, and the CIA assasin seems to be a little limp in the spine department when it comes to the heroine of the tale, it is still a... Lisez davantage

Published on Mar 8 2004 by V. Bell

2.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre suspense novel
Bess Grady is on a routine assignment in small-town Mexico as a photojournalist, but the howling of dogs triggers a terrible memory she's worked so hard to supress, and she knows... Lisez davantage

Published on Mar 2 2004 by cathst