Fury in Death (In Death, #63) by J.D. Robb Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, thriller
Series: In Death #63
Pages: 357
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 8, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
In the new crime thriller from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author, Lt. Eve Dallas journeys into the darkness where murder is born…
NYSPD lieutenant Eve Dallas never knows what to expect when she gets word of a body. It could be an elderly man who made the mistake of climbing a ladder in slippery footwear. And the next call could be a wealthy biotech executive beaten to death in his home office―but what was Larry Chu’s mistake?
The victim’s corpse is so mangled and damaged it’s hard to believe a lone, unarmed assailant could have managed it. The killer was clearly unnaturally strong―and smart enough to find a way into Chu’s highly secure building. Most of all, whoever did this was very, very angry.
The excessive violence leads Dallas to conclude that this was a deeply personal act, born of a rage that she can’t excuse but can understand thanks to her own traumatic past. And though the motive seems rooted in heated emotion rather than cold hard cash, she can’t ignore the suspicious bank account in the Cayman Islands, or the shadowy, profit-hungry company Chu worked for. The mystery only grows when it turns out Chu isn’t the only victim―and Dallas will need to tear through one layer of secrecy after another to reveal what lies behind this explosion of fury...
My Review:
In the end, this is a story about corporate greed and collateral damage. NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas has solved plenty of cases wrapped around those same two axes over the now 63 books (and counting!) in the In Death series.
As always, Dallas goes into the case seeking justice for the dead. Often, that means developing a meticulous case against a killer, one bloody, painstaking step at a time. But this case isn’t just about the murders in the present – it’s about murders in the past that Dallas and her colleagues never even knew WERE murders. Not even her mentor, Captain Feeney, who helped to rule this killer’s origin story as an accident. Not because Feeney did anything wrong or underhanded or even neglectful – because if he were that kind of cop he wouldn’t BE Dallas’ mentor – but simply because thirteen years ago, one greedy corporation had access to WAY better tech than the NYPSD.
But time marches on, and tech marches with it, or ahead of it. Thanks in part at least to Dallas’ husband, the mega-billionaire known only as Roarke, the NYPSD has a lot of top-of-the-line tech on their own side of the line. And more than enough talent to follow the trail. Not just to this murderer, but to the original crime.
So this is really a story about justice delayed. About the need for justice that only comes to light because someone lit the torch with vengeance. And about a killer who is also a victim, just as, once upon a time, the little girl who would someday become Lt. Eve Dallas was herself.
She understands his choices – even as she condemns his actions. He respects hers – even as he nearly beats her to a pulp so that he can finish the duty he claimed on the bodies of his dead wife and child.
He can’t be saved, no matter how much Dallas might want to redeem him. But she can stand for him, even after everything he’s done, because he’s already one of her dead.
Escape Rating A: At first, I had some doubts about the opening. Not just that the reader left that prologue pretty damn sure they already knew who the murderer was, but that they already knew most of the why and that the how got figured out pretty early in the story. And yet, we already sympathized with the murderer, because his cause was just even though his means were bloody and his motives seemed entirely vengeful.
Then again, there’s a strong streak of making heroes out of vigilantes in American “mythology”, and this murderer could have been carved right out of those myths. Additionally, while Dallas is the one who finally administers a whole lot of justice, it has to be acknowledged that her investigation only begins because he starts killing people who believed they had gotten away with multiple mass murders and needed to be taken care of for everyone’s safety.
So the reader gets caught on the horns of that dilemma, that every single one of this particular murderer’s victims got exactly what they had coming to them. Which doesn’t make any of it right. The problem is that right only happened because the murderer forced their old crimes into the light. By killing them in a way that absolutely could not be called anything other than murder.
I’m still sitting with that, because as fascinating as the case is, and as much fun as it is to catch up with everyone and see the team working at the top of their game and the found family coming together for a celebration at the end, this is a story that doesn’t have a clear ending even though it has a clear ending. Part of what readers enjoy about mysteries is the catharsis of opening a story where order has been disrupted and seeing order restored, good triumph and evil get its just desserts. But this is a story where the lines between good and evil are blurry. And yet, we STILL want to root, at least a bit, for the man who committed the murders. Or at least we feel for him because he’s a victim, too.
This 63rd entry in the In Death series grabbed me and shook me from the very first page, even though I already knew who did it, why they did it and most of how they did it. Because none of that was the point. The point was the story of what happens after someone breaks, and the true, sometimes even desperate lengths that someone will go to for love. Which fits right into the entire arc of the series, starting from the very first book, Naked in Death. When Roarke took all of his shady businesses and experience as a high-end thief and turned his whole empire entirely legit because he fell in love with a cop.
The next book in this series is Perfect in Death, coming in February. I’m already looking forward to it.
