Faces of Fear

June 9, 2008
Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Conrad Dunn has put his talents to work making his wife, Margot, the embodiment of physical perfection, but after her face is scarred in a boating accident, Margot takes her own life in this less than suspenseful thriller from bestseller Saul (The Devil’s Labyrinth
). Remarrying within a year, Dunn persuades his new teenage stepdaughter, Alison Shaw, who’s struggling to adjust to life in the Dunn mansion and to a private school with a ridiculously affluent student body, to undergo breast-enhancement surgery. Meanwhile, the police are searching frantically for the Frankenstein Killer, a serial slayer who removes his female victims’ glands as well as more obvious body parts. The motive for the killings and the eventual outcome will surprise few readers. The basic premise has a plot hole big enough to fit a truck, but Saul fans may not notice or care if they do.

July 15, 2008
Alison's whole world changes when her mother marries plastic surgeon Conrad Dunn. She moves into a megamansion in the Hollywood Hills, leaves her public school behind for a prestigious prep school, and makes new friends. Her new friends have all had cosmetic work done on them by Alison's stepfather and give her suggestions on what she should have done. Although the thought of it creeps her out at first, she agrees to accept breast augmentation as a 16th birthday present. Her mother, Risa, also begins to contemplate having a nip or tuck done as she struggles with comparisons to Conrad's late first wife, whose model-perfect looks were crafted by Dunn. At the same time, murders are being committed around L.A. by the so-called Frankenstein Killer, who takes victims' glands and a facial feature. When the features are put together, whose face will it be? Saul's compelling 35th novel preys on society's obsession with beauty and perfection and imposes it on an innocent young woman. Recommended for all public libraries.Amanda Scott, Cambridge Springs P.L., PA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2008
Alison Shaw, 16, is OK with herself as she is; that is, physically fit and not obsessive about her plain face and flat chest. But a cascade of coincidences leads her to self-doubt. First, supermodel Margot Dunn, sidelined by an accident that minced one side of her perfect puss, takes a header onto some California coastal rocks. Then Alisons parents, real estate agent Risa and TV-station production manager Michael, split over his affair with another man. Then Risa is wooed and won by her wealthy client Conrad Dunn, Margots cosmetic supersurgeon widower, which shifts Alison from normal upper-middle-class neighborhood and friends to Dunns super-upscale haunts and a school full of rich girls whove already gone under his scalpel. Surrounded by feminine perfection, Alison reluctantly reassesses herself. Dunn has already assessed her and found bone structure to match Margots. He made Margot. Can he remake her? Meanwhile, a series of horrific murders is under way, in which each victim is left lacking a different facial feature. Saul has done so many imperiled-child thrillers that he probably could write one in his sleep. In fact, darned if he hasnt with this flaccid, routine, predictable example.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)