Point of View

Iris Johansen's Blind Alley is written in the third person, concentrating the life of Jane MacGuire. The narrator is omniscient and reliable. Though the narration divulges some of the inner thoughts of the various characters, the majority of the story is told through dialogue.

Instead of concentrating on the psychology of her killer Aldo, Johansen focuses much the book on Jane and how she handles the situations at hand. Johansen employs the omniscient narrator in an effort to show the multifaceted aspects of the story. Without such narration, the audience would no be privy to Aldo's random killings as he moves away from Georgia or Trevor admitting to Bartlett his attraction to Jane. Indeed, these aspects add to the overall experience of the book, but at the same time sacrifices the inner-turmoil that Jane must be feeling. After all, this is a great burden to Jane...