When Karen closes her eyes, the visions come. Through time and space, she sees a place where stolen children sleep. And if Karen denies a young policeman’s request for help, the children may never go home again.

Melissa Terry

The Third Eye

My Lois Duncan jag continues with  The Third Eye , a supernatural thriller first published in 1984 and revised by the author in 2012 with superficial updates including what the Young Adult reader of today is wearing and how they're communicating. "Superficial" might be too strong for a book that dispenses with high school soap opera to plunge its eighteen year old heroine into existential dread involving ESP, an aloof mother, a mysterious young cop and a gang of kidnappers. It's a lightning fast and mostly engaging read that seemed as if it was written lightning fast, with a main character who's a little too perfect to sustain sufficient levels of unease.  Set in New Mexico-the Duncan novels I've read so far transverse the  AAA Road Atlas --the story concerns unusual high school senior Karen Connors, who's babysitting seven-year-old Bobby Zenner and his two-year-old sister for the afternoon. While Karen is feeding the baby, she receives a visit from her cocky boyfriend Tim Dietz, a popular senior who swept Karen off her feet two months ago and propelled her from ugly duckling to white swan status at school. Karen has always had difficulty fitting in with the crowd and walks on egg shells getting Tim to leave the Zenner house without risking he might get angry and break up with her.  Karen notices that Bobby is missing. Her efforts to locate him end with Bobby's friends telling her they last saw him playing Hide n Seek two hours ago. An intuitive sense tells her that Bobby isn't close by, so Karen contacts the police. She's questioned by Officer Robert Wilson, a blue-eyed cop who seems to her too young for this job. Reassured that actual kidnappings are rare, Karen has a gut feeling that Bobby is in a box. The Zenners arrive home hysterical. By now, Karen is picking up more feelings and is able to tell Officer Wilson that Bobby is locked in the trunk of her boyfriend's car. Bobby is rescued from the open trunk he crawled into and Tim shut after Karen had him leave.  Karen returns home to be lectured by her mother Wanda for breaking the Zenners' house rules for Tim. She interrogates her daughter on how she knew where to find Bobby. It reminds Mrs. Connors of an incident in their old neighborhood when Karen was five and she "knew" that a missing boy had been trapped in a drainage pipe. Driven out of the neighborhood by the gossip, Mrs. Connors is worried it might happen all over again and affect her daughter's new social life. Karen could care less. Tim wants to put the incident behind him and is nowhere near as curious about Karen's abilities when she returns to school. In fact, Karen is even asked to join the Prom Committee. Life is good.  Someone who is interested in Karen's intuition is Officer Rob, who pays a visit to the Connors home and asks for Karen's help locating another missing child, an eight-year-old named Carla Sanchez who disappeared a week ago. Objections by Mrs. Connors convince Karen to give the experiment a try. Driving to the outskirts of Albuquerque, Officer Rob shares with her the theory that Carla's indigent father took her. Carla's mother allows Karen into her daughter's room, but rummaging through the missing girl's possessions fails to conjure any feelings. Once in the car, Karen leads Rob to a path along a riverbank where her visions of the missing girl intensify and dread creeps in.   The knowledge was undeniable. Carla Sanchez was dead. Somewhere in that rushing river, there was a body of a barefoot, blue jeans-clad child. The bright new bike would go unridden; the yellow bear unhugged. The dresses in the closet of the tiny bedroom would be taken from hangers and given to Goodwill. The portrait on the television set in the living room would be enshrined forever now, no longer just a photograph, but the last school picture--the  final  picture--"the way Carla looked the last year of her life." Mrs. Sanchez would show it to everyone who entered the house. She would speak in the past tense, her pride shrouded in pain.  She was so beautiful, my Carla!  Haunted by her experience at the river, Karen's problems get worse when Carla's mother tells the media that her daughter's body was located by a psychic named Karen Connors. The house phone starts ringing with calls from reporters, Karen's parents are upset with her for getting involved and Tim is suddenly interested in Karen's ability to see the answers of their English literature test. She goes through the motions for the rest of her senior year, hoping that college will let her put the events of the spring behind her. Passionate about children, Karen takes a job at a daycare center, where a mysterious van and the couple driving it have their own plans for her.  The text was revised unnecessarily by Duncan in 2012 to give her characters contemporary gadgets like mobile phones, computers and DVDs. Roller skates are changed to skateboards and Karen's prom dress underwent a makeover, but unlike    I Know What You Did Last Summer    which involved a criminal conspiracy between four teenagers, the heroine of  The Third Eye  actually prefers to socially disconnect. Karen's first experience using her wild talent to help law enforcement is the most vivid and the creepiest section of the novel and I liked the way Duncan turned her heroine inward, threatening to dissolve her like  The Incredible Shrinking Man  from the inside out.  Different novelists might've taken this opportunity to chart Karen's descent into social stigma and possibly madness, but this is a Young Adult novel and Duncan is handicapped by the form rather than liberated by it. Karen's emotionally estranged relationship with her mother is the most important in the book but her character is essentially a Mary Sue with only superficial imperfections. A good student who loves babies, there's never any possibility Duncan could torture with the reader by sacrificing Karen and in addition to a pair of weak antagonists, the book is unable to sustain suspense. It's an entertaining read whose pieces fit together well enough, but not a riveting thriller.

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