Final Target

Wind Dancer #4

by Iris Johansen

The President’s daughter...
The women determined to save her...
The man with the power to betray a nation...

Melissa Riley arrives at her sister’s isolated Virginia country home to find herself plunged into a deadly drama. There the renowned Dr. Jessica Riley is attempting to draw the daughter of the President of the United States out of a severe catatonic trauma. The last thing young Cassie Andreas saw was an organized team ruthlessly murder her nanny and the Secret Service agents sworn to protect her. But to free Cassie, Melissa and Jessica must trust a mysterious, charismatic man.

Michael Travis made his fortune in the international underworld. He risked everything to save Cassie during that terrible night of bloodshed. And he has entered into a secret bargain with the President. But is his show of concern all a treacherous charade? Melissa and Jessica have no choice but to accept Travis as their ally—and to follow a dangerous plan that will lead them into the world of a killer who’ll destroy anyone standing between him and the... Final Target.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Romance, Fiction, Suspense, Romantic Suspense, Mystery Thriller

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Iris Johansen is a New York Times bestselling author. She began her writing after her children left home for college. She first achieved success in the early 1980s writing category romances. In 1991, Johansen began writing suspense historical romance novels, starting with the publication of The Wind Dancer. In 1996 Johansen switched genres, turning to crime fiction, with which she has had great success.

She lives in Georgia and is married. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Her daughter, Tamara, serves as her research assistant.

IRIS JOHANSEN is The New York Times bestselling author of Night and Day, Hide Away, Shadow Play, Your Next Breath, The Perfect Witness, Live to See Tomorrow, Silencing Eve, Hunting Eve, Taking Eve, Sleep No More, What Doesn't Kill You, Bonnie, Quinn, Eve, Chasing The Night, Eight Days to Live, Blood Game, Deadlock, Dark Summer, Pandora's Daughter, Quicksand, Killer Dreams, On The Run, and more. And with her son, Roy Johansen, she has coauthored Night Watch, The Naked Eye, Sight Unseen, Close Your Eyes, Shadow Zone, Storm Cycle, and Silent Thunder.

http://www.irisjohansen.com

Reviews

[Diane Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing series! another action filled plotline that still had many surprises in store in the storyline left plus all the additional stuff that followed after ... well written. Admire this author's writing (paperback!)

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say? I like to read IJ books. I realize this particular book was not a favorite of many but if I judged all books by bad reviews I'd probably never read. I read and judge for myself. Myself really liked this one. Yes, it goes off the grail and has some paranormal issues in it. Prior to reading this I had not read any of the previous books in this series. I can say it could be a stand alone also. Its not like IJ hasn't written a few others with the paranormal element in it. I liked all them as well. There was one part that I didn't see coming.

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Isn't Iris Johansen embarrassed, writing the same story over and over again? Doesn't she have any pride as an author?

Really, those two questions should make it clear that I did not like this book. Really, prospective readers, stick to the Eve Duncan series. Read enough of the books to get an idea of Eve's character, then go ahead and read the final trilogy if you're interested in what happened to Bonnie. For the love of God, don't read any of her other series, stand-alone novels, or spin-offs. Once you've read one, you've read them all.

I thought this one would at least be interesting because there seemed to be two women and two love interests. Nope. Read more for spoilers.

The book is about a doctor, Jessica, who works on children in catatonic states, and her sister, Melissa, whom Jessica brought out of a catatonic state when she was a child. Melissa has also been psychic ever since. Jessica's latest patient is Cassie, the seven-year-old daughter of the president. When Cassie was witness to a bloodbath that was begun in an attempt to kidnap her to hold her ransom for a priceless statue, a man named Michael Travis rescued her.

So Travis--Hey, noticed how men in this book are called their last names, and women are called by their firsts? I never understood that. Johansen does it in all her other books, too. It's annoying.

So Travis has this assistant/friend named Sean Galen. The men are pretty similar, except Galen doesn't want to screw anybody--we'll come to this later--so he's not as unbearably annoying and creepy. Now, what I thought was that something interesting would happen: Jessica would end up with Travis, and Melissa would end up with Galen. Makes sense, right?

But no. What I thought was chemistry between Melissa and Galen was actually just them being very similar. And in Iris Johansen's world, people who are "too similar" can never, ever be attracted to one another. She even uses the "like brother and sister" cliche.

Then, over halfway through the book, Jessica gets killed. I admit this was a bit of a surprise to me, but now I knew which characters were going to have sex. Yep, Melissa and Travis.

Did I mention that Travis is a scumbag? I understand the "bad boy" appeal, but this guy is as bad as Seth Caleb, although it's for different reasons. Travis risks Cassie's life by refusing to help her when she's having a nightmare so that Jessica will cave and help him kidnap her so that she'll get better more quickly. Oh, yes, we're told that he hates it, that he feels bad, etc., but I didn't feel sorry for him at all. I hated him.

Melissa isn't much better. Like most of Iris Jo's heroines, she refuses to let anyone protect her and keeps taking stupid risks because she wants to kill the bad guy herself for revenge. Look, I can understand wanting him dead, but who cares who ends up finishing him off? Also, he killed Travis' friend/father figure. Why doesn't Travis get to kill him? Huh? Not to mention he'd be better at it.

Melissa is horrible to Cassie, too. She actually blames her for her sister's death--and no, I don't mean this feeling of resentment she can't help. She outright tells Cassie that it's her fault. Why? Because she "needs to" hear it so that she'll "come out of" her catatonic state faster. She continues to do the "tough love" thing with Cassie, admitting to Travis that she's taking a huge gamble and that she could actually cause Cassie to retreat further and be damaged for life. Wow, I totally believe you when you say you love her.

Oh, but of course it's just what Cassie needs to cause her to respond and Melissa ends up being her very very BFF. That's right, Cassie, who has no medical training whatsoever, uses tough love to yank a child out of a catatonic state and learn to live again. And it's okay, because she's "strong" and can totally handle it.

Did I mention how bad the writing is in this book? Because it's bad. It's awful.

I've also noticed that Iris Johansen cannot write children convincingly, so she has to make every one of them super gifted to try and hide that fact. Sorry, Johansen, it doesn't work. In the "tunnel" that Cassie was hiding in inside her mind, she kept speaking in fragments. "Lonely." "Better together." "Won't do it again." It's so incredibly irritating, and it does nothing to make me feel sorrier for her or think you know anything about children. Children are hard to write. I admit that, and I'd have preferred it if you just wrote about children who were, you know, children, and not magic or psychic (because yes, Cassie is psychic).

If anyone wants to know why I'm still reading Iris Johansen, please refer to my profile page. TL;DR it's an OCD compulsion. Do not try this at home.

If you must read a stand-alone novel, try one written by Johansen with her son, Roy. The book I read by both of them, "Close Your Eyes," was probably the best Johansen book I've read.

[thadine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started off with potential. The president's seven year old daughter becomes catatonic. In comes Jessica, a doctor who specialises in treating this sort of PTSD. Then along comes her sister Melissa and it's all downhill from there. Melissa is an idiot. She spends all her time stressing out, and complains that Jessica won't believe or understand her. Well, that might be because she never explains herself to her, she just tries to manipulate Jessica into doing what she wants by getting all emotional and demanding. She becomes even more emotional and reactive as the book progresses (the excuse is that she experiences some traumatic events), but rather than sympathising with her, I wanted to take her outside and shoot her. She runs around needlessly complicating situations and making everything worse. The funniest moment was when she says,"I was the one making it difficult, which isn't like me." Really? As far as I can see, she is ALWAYS the one making it difficult. Anyway, Melissa is just the most annoying character in this book, but the others were pretty awful, too. There's a lot of unnecessary stuff happening just to make things more complex. I like a twist, but not when it doesn't make any sense, and there was a lot in this book that didn't really make any sense. Much of the action was there just for the sake of it, and characters either had to act like total idiots (like Melissa) or do things completely out of character for them to happen. Don't waste your time on this one.

[Xan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I basically very much enjoy Johansen's books, but the more of them I read, the more annoyed I find myself with her characters and writing style. I enjoyed the storyline, as I do with most of her stories, but as usual, I found the characters very immature and self-defeating. I feel more like I might be reading dialog for teenagers, not adults. It tends to make the characters a bit unlikeable, and the heroines in her stories rather weak and dependent upon the men to take care of them or save the day. It's unfortunate, because her plots are usually rather good. Perhaps she should consider a series of books for "young adults".

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book starts with the daughter, Cassie, of the President of the United States who
witnesses brutal murders and retreats into a silent world and has horrible nightmares. Renowned
Dr. Jessica Riley has pulled her sister, Melissa, out of the horrors of severe catatonic trauma.
Now she is trying to do the same for Cassie but she will need her sisters help. This book is full
of unexpected drama, international intrigue, deadly killers and the theft of a priceless
statue. This book was so hard to put down. I highly recommend it.

[Diane Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, Iris Johansen wrote an intriguing mystery

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t sure what this book would be about I got it from a free library. It had some telepathic story line as well as murder. Only average 2.5 stars

[Tetty Marlinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

#81 - 2025
Genre: Thriller

[Lisa]

Not too bad. Too much use of the phrase "albatross around our necks" though. Drove me nuts because it's a stupid saying.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was kind of let down by this one.

And, don't get me wrong, I realize that Iris Johansen novels are brain candy. They're not intended to be mind-blowing literature. But this one just didn't seem to be as well put together as other offerings from her.

Things I Liked: the character of Sean Galen. If Sean Galen has his own series, I will read them all. If he does not have his own series, then Iris Johansen needs to write one, because I promise that I will read them all. I also enjoyed the plotting: There are two deaths in this novel that were unexpected and broke my heart. There are also some really nice ideas presented about the state of the human mind when in one of the coma states the characters in this novel are either studying or experiencing.

Things I Did Not Like: This novel seemed choppy and rushed. The continual shifting from character point to view was unnecessary and not well put together. The plotting was good, but this novel's plot twists (a thing which Iris is usually a master of) seemed like cheating a few times. A good chunk of them narrowed down to "things the reader didn't know already" instead of "things the reader thought they would have already figured out."

In the end, this novel will stand out to me as the introduction of Sean Galen. Not much more.

[Amy the book-bat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good and interesting story. I thought the trauma-induced "psychic" abilities was a twist that sounded plausible and worked perfectly within the story. Who knows what all our brains and minds can do. There was plenty of action and suspense to keep the pages turning. I was surprised at the number of characters that seemed to cross over between this series and the previous book I read from the Eve Duncan series. I'm not sure where this book falls in comparison to the other on the timeline within the world that Johansen has created. I will definitely look into reading some more by this author.

[krin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a good thriller, but could have been better. I liked the character interaction, especially between Cassie and Melissa in the "tunnel" and between Travis and both Melissa and Jessica Riley. I didn't like that it took the author a long time to explain what Travis was involved in and why various people were after him.

[Christine Kirchoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this awhile ago but forgot to post it here. Good book!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review feels slightly unfair as I wasn’t aware that this was the 4th book of the series (my bad lol), so I went into Final Target (presumably) missing some context, but overall it works well as a standalone novel. There was enough information provided that I didn’t feel like I was missing out too much by the time the ball started rolling.

This was my first introduction to Johansen and I thought the storyline and content was super interesting & really well done; however, the pacing and plot twists felt a little off. Additionally, I felt the way mental health was discussed (particularly between Jessica & Melissa) was also a little off. I gotta give Johansen some slack, as it was published in 2001 so it’s not really a huge turn off in my opinion, just something I noticed that was uncomfortable.

Final Target has every component I’m a sucker for — mystery, suspense, plot twists, and a sprinkle of romance all while racing against the clock. Overall I thought it was a pretty good book but I’m not sure it’s the novel that best displays Johansen’s work.

[Nancy Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a nutshell, a terrorist's plot to grab a valuable art piece (The Wind Dancer), Cassie Andreas, the President's daughter who barely escapes with her life after seeing her nanny and Secret Service men slaughtered, Michael Travis, an enigmatic man who saves her (but is a good guy or a bad guy?), and Melissa Riley, the woman who brings her back from her catatonic state (why does she connect with Cassie?) ...dramatic and suspenseful to the end.

The fourth book of the The Wind Dancer series was readable despite the fact that none of the previous novels in the series had been read. A few details might have been missed from the previous three, but not enough to create a problem for this reader. Frankly, it was only after reading most of it that I realized that there were others. May have to read them some time in the future.

[LInda L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written 20 years ago, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe because I haven't read the first 3 in the series. I mistakenly thought that Jessica would be the main female focus, but I wasn't the author, so there you are. One of my favorite characters was Galen, who seemed to take care of a great many people. One way or another. Michael was apparently close to being a crooked hero, but again -- didn't read the first 3. Am not a fan of novels about supposed presidential stuff, but this one was OK. i have read other Johansen books, but could not say which ones. As well as I can remember, I liked them. Did not quite "get" the business about the Wind Dancer, but again -- this is my first of the 4.

[Aimi Tedresalu]

Ega selle raamatu läbilugemine midagi erilist juurde küll ei andnud, aga kellele sellised meeldivad, siis paariks tunniks argielust eemale kadumiseks sobib küll.

Ameerika presidendi väike tütar on tunnistajaks tapmisele, pärast mida ta põgeneb oma maailma ega välju sealt enam. Ravima hakkab teda arst, kelle noorem õde kunagi sama probleemiga silmitsi seisis. Õel ja väiksel tüdrukul tekib telepaatiline side. Muidugi on asjasse seotud ka pahad mehed, narkoärki, hinnalised taiesed ja armastuslugu. Viimane küll üsna põgus ja ülevaatlik, aga siiski. Ega rohkem sellise raamatu kohta midagi kirjutada ei oskagi.

[Ada Iaboni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once again I got a book that was in the middle of a series, this being #4.
There was much I did not understand, since not much was explained about the prior books, but even if explained, I probably would not have liked it much. There were some interesting story-lines and ideas, that kept me reading to the end, but not interesting enough to really like it.
The author attempted too many concepts into one story, which made it convoluted and it had the "WHAT?" factor too. If I come across more of this series, I think I'll pass.

[Paula Day Johns · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the plot, it was intriguing with Cassie's psychological escape from trauma and with Jessica, a psychiatrist who committed herself to Cassie's recovery. Along comes Michael Travis and Melissa Riley and things begin to roll forward quickly.

Cassie happens to be the president of the United States' daughter, that is just a side note of what is going on here amid some very dark characters.

I was a bit disappointed in Johansens' style but accustomed myself to it because the plot was a good one.

[Rawles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good little mystery with a hint of supernatural abilities. A bit too much back and forthing with the storyline points of view, but a solid read. Good for the beach or a Loooooong plane ride!!!! I did not read any of the other Wind Dancer books, so not sure what happened beforehand especially with Melissa and the titled statue. I would be interested in following the relationship between Melissa and her bad guy though....!!!! That could lead to more cracking dialogue, which I love!!!

[Stephanie Weinberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Jessica Riley is hired by POTUS Andreas to work with his traumatized daughter, Cassie, after a kidnapping attempt. Michael Travis, a freelance smuggler-thief-mercenary, foils the attempt and saves Cassie, so she sees him as her savior. Melissa, Jessica's sister, forms a bond with the nearly catatonic child. A good thriller.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Final Target is the fourth and final book in the Wind Dancer series by Iris Johansen. This is a gripping romantic suspense story full of all the ingredients I have come to expect from Ms. Johansen- with surprising developments that had me flipping the pages to find out what happens, tension, intrigue, and so much more.
Well worth the read.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thriller that is completely unbelievable and semi-exciting. Of course sex scenes. I didn't know it was 4th in a series when I started it, but I don't think that impacted the story. it was described by one reviewer as a "woman's novel for men". Yep.

[Gwendolyn Seibert Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Final target

Oh my what to say about this book it was so good I loved it Jessica was a beautiful person as is her sister Melisa Cassie was so important to the story glad she finally seen her way clear to come out Michael was awesome as was Galen great read!!!

[Nikki Golden · Rating 1 out of 5]

This felt lazily and hastily written, like hurrying up to complete the final chapter. For one, how did Jonathan Andreas get back the statue, which was stolen in book 3. None of the characters were compelling as in the other 3.

[Cathi Cantrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating storyline with everything mixed in -- espionage, murder, psychic abilities, romance, politics, intrigue -- and moving along at such a fast clip, my heart was racing from page one until the end! EXCELLENT!

[Misty Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Final Target was good. Interesting characters and a nice take on bringing in the President and his daughter. However, my only con would be, Melissa one of the characters, was a bit annoying. I'm not so sure your typical woman could get away with such annoyance.

[Carla Douglass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

This book was fascinating from beginning to end. The characters were quite interesting and the storyline was exciting with a lot of intrique. Its to bad there isn't another book to this series.

[Ron · Rating 1 out of 5]

How boring can you get?