Author: J.D. Robb

Grade A #BookReview: Fury in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Grade A #BookReview: Fury in Death by J.D. RobbFury 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.

#BookReview: Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Stolen in Death by J.D. RobbStolen in Death (In Death, #62) 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 #62
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 3, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A violent death and a vault of stolen treasures has Eve Dallas struggling to solve crimes old and new in the latest thriller in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series.
A blow to the head with a block of amethyst has left multibillionaire Nathan Barrister dead―while nearby, a vault, its door ajar, sits filled with priceless paintings, jewelry, and other treasures. Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband, Roarke―who misspent his youth in Ireland as a scrappy thief―recognizes at least two stolen pieces among the hoard. The crime scene suggests a burglar caught in the act. But only one item seems to be missing.
Then it’s revealed that the vault had actually belonged to the victim’s late father―and no one in the household knew it was there until a recent remodeling project exposed it. To protect the family name and business, they explain to Eve, they’d been looking for a way to return the ill-gotten gains anonymously and avoid the police. But now the police are all over their elegant house, and have a bigger, bloodier mystery to solve.
By all accounts, Nathan Barrister was a good man, a generous employer, a devoted husband and father. As for his father―he clearly had secrets. Now it’s up to Eve and her team to find out if those secrets got Nathan killed―and if it was a crime of passion or revenge.

My Review:

This 62nd entry in the In Death series was a whole lot of fun with just a bit of angst to give it spice – and an extra body or two.

Well, it’s fun for the reader. In the end, it’s also fun for Dallas’ bosses, Commander Whitney and Chief Tibble, as they get to go out and arrest a murderer who really, really deserves it. Although THAT scenario does make Dallas more than a bit nervous. After all, it’s been a while since these two gentlemen have been out on the street. It wouldn’t be good for her career if she lost the NYPSD’s top brass in an operation, no matter how big, whether they (eagerly and enthusiastically) volunteered for the duty or not.

But there’s just a bit of angst in this case for Dallas and Roarke. Not the crime itself, but all the crimes that it leads back to. Some of which, back in the days before he met Dallas, were Roarke’s.

A man is dead, to begin with. That’s where the stories in this series usually begin. This particular death also begins in a scenario that Dallas has often imagined but doesn’t really wish would happen. Mostly.

She’s at a big deal charity gala, dressed to the nines, in painfully sharp high heels. Or at least that’s how the evening began – the part where she imagines that she wouldn’t mind getting rescued by a timely murder somewhere else. But just when it’s gotten to the good parts, with Dallas and Roarke and their friends closing down a truly swanky bar, she gets the call that there’s been a homicide at an equally swanky personal residence.

So off she goes to the home of Nathan Barrister, dead on the scene, while she’s still dressed to hobnob with the rich and famous. Which is exactly what she’s doing at Barrister’s residence. It’s just that the man himself is dead, in the midst of what looks like an interrupted burglary, with a floor-to-ceiling safe full of priceless stolen treasures gaping open and sparkling behind his body.

That vault is a very shiny Pandora’s Box. The contents, one and all, were stolen – and famously so. Many if not most of them were stolen when Nathan Barrister was literally still in short pants, much too young to have been the planner or the buyer of these very hot commodities. His dear old dad, Henry Barrister, very much on the other hand, was a self-made billionaire many times over, and had just the right sort of acquisitive personality to have bought and paid for both the goods AND the actual theft of them.

That the last decade or so of Barrister senior’s acquisition of his very private collection overlapped, just barely, with Roarke’s own career as a high end thief adds more layers to the already complex puzzle. Because the most famous piece in that collection was definitely one of Roarke’s early jobs – even though he was never caught. Not that he wasn’t suspected of being part of the crew that stole the Royal Suite of emeralds. But there was no crew, and there were no breadcrumbs leading back to him. Now he’s on the straight and narrow, with a cop for a wife who wouldn’t have him any other way, and neither of them can afford to have that old crime traced back to him.

He’s confident that it won’t be. Dallas is trying her best to be just as confident that he’s right.

But Senior has been dead for months by the time his son gets murdered over the Royal Suite, which has been stolen (again) straight out of a vault that not even the family knew existed until after the old man was gone. Whatever he was responsible for then – he can’t be responsible for the theft and murder now.

Or can he?

Escape Rating B+: This book reminded me a lot of last week’s Make It Out Alive. The two cop shops are a bit similar, and the teams both scratch the same ‘competence porn’ itch when I read them. In particular, these two books reminded me of each other because they had the same feel to them.

As I was reading, I was absolutely riveted in both cases. The pace was relentless and the story absolutely pulled me along at breakneck speeds. Both were one-day, one-sitting reads – even if my seat did move around the house a bit while I read.

But both stories suffered from a bit of ‘villain fail’. The villain in Make It Out Alive was more of a caricature than a character. The real villains in Stolen in Death, well, one was so obvious I saw it way before Dallas did. The whydunnit took a bit longer, but the whodunnit was entirely too easy.

The other villain was all wrapped up in the reasons why Dallas wasn’t quite as confident that Roarke’s past wasn’t about to come back and bite them as he was, because it already was. Just as the Royal Suite was from one of his jobs back in the day, so was the second villain. Magdelana Percell has tried to get Roarke back before, particularly in Innocent in Death – which she wasn’t, either then, now OR dead – and it didn’t work AT ALL. In the end of that story, Dallas punched the woman in the face for her presumption. That Magdelana’s back to either try yet again with Roarke or stick it to both of them for THEIR rejection represented a fascinating blast from the past that managed not to go all the way to the angst factory yet still created plenty of additional tension.

Along with a reminder that, while the series began publishing in our world in 1995 with Naked in Death, the time that has elapsed within the books began in 2058, and has only progressed to 2061 by the time of this story. That’s a mere THREE years for Dallas and Roarke, but THIRTY-ONE years for the reader. Something that this book very much reminds us of as Dallas is 33 in this book and Roarke is 37. It seems like a long time has passed since the first book, and it has FOR US, but not for them.

This series is always a comfort read for me, and this entry was no exception. I loved catching up with the progress on Peabody’s and McNab’s (and Mavis’, Leonardo’s and Bella’s) new house, Detective Sergeant Jenkinson’s latest eye-watering ties and especially Galahad’s ongoing campaign to steal breakfast from his humans. The case wasn’t the biggest or most complicated one that Dallas has ever solved, but watching her team’s process of pulling together the complex web of threads was as fun as ever. That this particular investigation held a dark thread of angst on Dallas’ part regarding Roarke getting caught over his ‘former’ career added a layer of tension even as his smugness over his previous accomplishments lightened the mood while they each worried about the consequences to the other.

All in all, and as always, I’m happy to have had another opportunity to see how all my ‘book friends’ are doing, and I’m already looking forward to the next book in the series, Fury in Death, coming in September.

#BookReview: Framed in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Framed in Death by J.D. RobbFramed in Death (In Death, #61) 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 #61
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 2, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Death imitates art in the brand-new crime thriller starring homicide cop Eve Dallas from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author J.D. Robb.
Manhattan is filled with galleries and deep-pocketed collectors who can make an artist's career with a wave of a hand. But one man toils in obscurity, his brilliance unrecognized while lesser talents bask in the glory he believes should be his. Come tomorrow, he vows, the city will be buzzing about his work.
Indeed, before dawn, Lt. Eve Dallas is speeding toward the home of the two gallery owners whose doorway has been turned into a horrifying crime scene overnight. A lifeless young woman has been elaborately costumed and precisely posed to resemble the model of a long-ago Dutch master, and Dallas plunges into her investigation.

My Review:

There are, as there often are in this series, two things going on. The ‘A Plot’ tends to be the case that Dallas ends up working on, while the ‘B Plot’ is generally wrapped up in whatever is going on with the extended fam.

And that’s the way this OMG 61st entry in the series seems like it was intended to be, as we start by witnessing the first murder – and get thoroughly creeped out being inside the killer’s entitled, egotistical, head.

But in spite of his sociopathy and his narcissism, the serial killer that the media dubs ‘The Artist’ just isn’t all that. Yes, he’s deadly, but he’s also kind of stupid – or high on his own supply of entitlement and privilege. Once Dallas has her sights set on him, he’s not that hard to catch.

So the ‘B Plot’ in this story is the one that takes center stage – or is at least a whole lot more fun AND interesting to follow. For the past several books the story has been following the progress on the new house that Dallas’ oldest and dearest friend, singer Mavis Firestone, along with her designer hubby Leonardo and their daughter Bella, are building together with Dallas’ police partner Delia Peabody and her domestic partner, NYPSD e-geek Ian McNab. Now that the house is completed, and both couples have officially moved in, the background of this book is all about the ginormous, extended, multi-day housewarming event that’s been scheduled.

As long as Dallas gets the case wrapped – which of course she does. That the money and influence the murderer’s family brings to bear THINKS it can get in the way of justice just makes the inevitable resolution that much sweeter and more cathartic.

While the party, and the gathering of the clan and the fam, makes for a perfect – if just a bit understated – happy ending for this latest book in the series.

Escape Rating B: Some entries in the marvelous and marvelously long-running In Death series kick ass and take names on all aspects of the story – as was very much true with the previous entry in the series, Bonded in Death.

Very much on my other hand, sometimes the latest book in the series is merely a chance to catch up with Dallas and Roarke and their ever-increasing found family while oh, by the way, there’s a murder case. Framed in Death is one of the latter entries in the series.

Which does not, by any means, mean that it was bad, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a great reading time visiting with my ‘book friends’ at the NYPSD – because I absolutely did.

But it does mean that this is a book for fans and not an entry point in the series. This was still a single-sitting read for me and I was more than happy to take a trip back – or is that forward? – into Dallas and Roarke’s futuristic world.

IMHO, the problem with this entry in the series is that it a) didn’t tell us anything new about anyone, which is very much in comparison to the reveal of Summerset’s past in Bonded in Death, and b) the story had a terrible case of ‘villain fail’.

J.H. Ebersole just wasn’t all that interesting. Or diabolical. Or even, to be honest, all that smart. He was just an over-privileged and over-entitled white man who didn’t get told “NO” often enough as a child. His rich and powerful “Mommy”, and he still calls her that as an adult, indulged every single one of his wants and tantrums, to the point where he believes he’s entitled to commit murder in furtherance of his art.

Which is honestly mediocre at best.

Dallas and her colleagues only need three days to find and arrest him. Unfortunately, that also means he’s murdered three people in cold blood, but he’s just so used to getting his own way that he didn’t even bother to cover his tracks.

Which is where the real villain, the “Mommy” who made him who and what he is, shows up to ‘rescue’ her baby boy. She was a LOT more interesting as the villain, but we didn’t get enough of her to make the case more interesting. In the end, they both come off as over-privileged whiners.

Not that I didn’t love the righteous takedown at the end.

But the story as a whole was much more about the long drawn out housewarming for Mavis’ and Leonardo’s and Bella’s and Peabody’s and McNab’s new house. Which was lovely and they’ve all earned it but it wasn’t quite enough to sustain the story for anyone who wasn’t already invested in the series.

Which I am, so I had a great time. But this isn’t a great entry in the series. Howsomever, if you’re a fan, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

And that means I’ll be back in February when Stolen in Death comes out. I already have an ARC and I’m itching to get into it!

Grade A #BookReview: Bonded in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Grade A #BookReview: Bonded in Death by J.D. RobbBonded in Death (In Death, #60) 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 #60
Pages: 364
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 4, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The #1 New York Times bestselling author spins an epic tale of loyalty, treachery, murder, and the long shadow of war…
His passport read Giovanni Rossi. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes…
Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She’s got an elderly victim who’d just arrived from Rome; a widow who knows nothing about why he’d left; an as-yet unidentifiable weapon; and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset―fiercely loyal, if somewhat grouchy, major-domo and the man who’d rescued her husband from the Dublin streets―may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then.
When Summerset learns of the crime, his shock and grief are clear―because, as he eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It’s not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must―not only to assist Eve’s investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died. Summerset is one of those who remain―and the murderous mission is yet to be fully accomplished…

My Review:

Dallas and Roarke and the ever-expanding found family that surrounds them are clearly bonded by, in and FOR life at this point in their long-running and hopefully continuing forever story. And that’s from a beginning in Naked in Death where both Dallas and Roarke were mostly loners who were wary of letting ANYONE inside their circle of trust.

Over the course of the series, through several stories that I refer to as ‘trips to the angst factory’, where their separate but similarly torturous childhoods have been laid bare and they’ve dealt with their own and each other’s emotional fallout and (undiagnosed but obvious) PTSD.

Throughout those trips down the terrifying back alleys of memory lane, and right up until their present, there has been one dour figure who shone the light of rescue in the darkest parts of Roarke’s childhood – and continues to keep the home fires burning even in Roarke’s lavish and secure ‘castle’ in New York City.

That person, who dresses like an undertaker and can’t resist a never-ending string of gibes at Dallas – even as she gives it right back – is Summerset, the man who helped make Roarke the man he is. And very much vice versa.

This 60th book in the In Death series isn’t so much Dallas and Roarke’s story as it is Summerset’s book. We’ve always known that Summerset had a much more interesting past than his present appearance would lead anyone to ever believe. And we’ve probably all wondered about it now and again. Well, I certainly have.

This is THAT story. Not as a trip down memory lane, but rather as a case of the long-buried past coming back to bite Summerset and his compatriots from the dark and desperate days of the Urban Wars. The days when every day they woke up above ground was an unexpected blessing, and when the only good day was a yesterday years in the past.

Someone is coming for all of the remaining members of ‘The Twelve’, the intelligence cell that finally broke the back of the Dominion and the other forces that had been tearing down people and governments for nearly a decade in a tide of rage and propaganda during the Urban Wars. The Twelve were betrayed back then by one of their own. He knows them – and they know him – all too well.

But he doesn’t know Eve Dallas, and he doesn’t know Roarke. He only thinks he does. And they only care about keeping Summerset and his brothers-and-sisters-in-arms alive. With their still very able assistance every step of the way.

Escape Rating A: I’ve been looking for comfort reads this week, and have had some hits (The Orb of Cairado) and some real misses (Beast of the North Woods) in my search. This OMG 60th book in the long-running In Death series absolutely hit the sweet spot I needed. I’ve been a fan of this series since the very beginning with Naked in Death, and I always love seeing how Dallas & Company are doing whether the case they have to solve is absorbing or merely an excuse to see my old friends – even Summerset’s old friends.

This entry in the series was WAY bigger and better than that. Along with being an excellent excuse to visit some truly dear friends. To the point where I had to wait a couple of days to write this review because I needed to tone down the SQUEE!

Which means that A rating is because I loved it and it absolutely was the right book at the right time. But it is also, absolutely, a book for the fans who know all the players without needing a scorecard AND who know enough about who’s who and what’s what to have always wondered what secrets have been hiding behind Summerset’s implacable but long-suffering demeanor.

What made this particular entry in the series so absorbing was the combination of the relentless pace of the current pursuit combined with just the right amount of information both about the past of this world and about the past of the individuals who were, and still are, The Twelve. Including Summerset.

We’ve not seen much detail about the Urban Wars, just that they happened (in our right now, which is frightening all by itself) and that they made a mess of their world that is still in recovery almost forty years later. Dallas and Roarke weren’t born until the end of the war, although many of the people they know lived through it – not just Summerset. One of the things done very well was the way that those who did serve all look back at those times with a combination of nostalgia, regret and resignation. It felt similar to the way that World War II veterans talked about their service and the times they lived through twenty plus years after THEIR service, which gave the whole thing a touch of the real.

Which is something that is always true of the whole series. This story is set in 2061, which is not as far from our now as we imagine it is – or was when the author began publishing this series in our 1995. But people who will be alive in 2061 have not merely already been born, but some of those people are already adults in the here and now.

All of which means that the world as we know it is still VERY recognizable in Dallas’ and Roarke’s 2061, which helps readers absorb the things that are different even as in some areas we’ve almost caught up. To take one example, the technological distance between our smartphones and their ‘links’ gets tinier every year.

I’ve written a lot and all around because I do love this series very much – even the entries that don’t quite live up to the peak that this one does. It answers SO MANY questions about Summerset’s past and puts so much more flesh on the bones of the Urban Wars that have always been lurking in the background. On top of that, it tells a fascinating story and does a great job of making the mystery compelling even though Eve figures out who the perpetrator is fairly early on. This one is all about the chase and it keeps the reader on the edge of their seat wanting to make sure that Eve puts the bastard in a cage before he puts any of her nearest and dearest in the ground.

There’s still more than enough stuff about the fam to let readers know how everyone is doing – especially my boy Galahad, the big cat who is truly the king of Roarke’s castle. The delicious icing on this particular story cake was the way that Dallas and Roarke included all the members of The Twelve, all those old soldiers, in the work of getting righteous payback on their traitor, and that they all got to bear witness. As they should and as they’d earned.

So that’s a wrap – with a delightfully ‘frosty’ bow on top – of Bonded in Death, the 60th book in the In Death series. I already have a copy of book 61, Framed in Death, and I can’t tell you how much I’m tempted to start it right now!

#BookReview: Passions in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Passions in Death by J.D. RobbPassions in Death (In Death, #59) 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 #59
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 3, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Homicide Detective Eve Dallas hunts a killer who turns a wedding party into a murder scene in the latest novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, J.D. Robb.
On a hot August night, Lt. Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, speed through the streets of Manhattan to the Down and Dirty club, where a joyful, boisterous pre-wedding girls’ night out has turned into a murder scene. One of the brides lies in a pool of blood, garroted in a private room where she was preparing a surprise for her fiancée—two scrimped and saved-for tickets to Hawaii.
Despite the dozens of people present, useful witnesses are hard to come by. It all brings back some bad memories for Eve. In her uniform days, she’d suffered an assault in the very same room—but she’d been able to fight back and survive. She’d gotten justice. And now she needs to provide some for poor young Erin.
Eve knows that the level of violence and the apparent premeditation involved suggest a volatile mix of hidden, heated passion and ice-cold calculation. This is a crime that can be countered only by hard detective work and relentless dedication—and Eve will not stop until she finds the killer who destroyed this couple’s dreams before the honeymoon even began…

My Review:

The villain in Passions in Death was almost as much of a ‘dooser’ as the villain in the previous book, Random in Death. And that’s unfortunate for this particular entry in the long-running (59 books and counting!) In Death series.

The case in Passions in Death is just a case, just as it was in that previous book. Even if there is a touch of painful nostalgia in it, as the victim, Erin Albright, was murdered at the ‘hen party’ for her and her bride-to-be, in the same club, in fact the very same room, in which Dallas was nearly murdered at her own such party the night before her wedding to Roarke three years previously.

Now Erin is dead, her bride-to-be has a memorial to attend instead of a wedding, and Dallas has to figure out who killed the bright young artist just as her life was about to reach a new pinnacle of happiness.

The problem for Dallas is that, initially at least, all she has is the victim. There are no obvious motives, the usual suspects all have alibis because they were all dancing on stage with each other, drunk and just a bit high on happiness, as the murder took place. Or were they?

All of which means that Dallas will have to dig, and dig hard, into every single one of those supposedly happy partygoers to discover who in Erin and her fiancée Shauna’s tight-knit little tribe wasn’t nearly so happy as they pretended to be.

Someone who was cold and calculating enough to plan what initially appears to be a perfect murder, while still hot-headed and vicious enough to strangle a victim who trusted them up close and personal via a piano wire digging viciously into their neck.

It’s not an easy case, made more difficult by Dallas’ own memories of that room, and of its location at an old and dear friend’s club. But it’s Dallas’ job, and she’s damn good at it – even when the initial leads are as slim as they are in this case.

Escape Rating B-: While this story doesn’t represent a trip to the angst factory for either Dallas or Roarke, it represents a bit of a literal return to the past in the way that the story circles back to a few of the locations of the earliest days of Dallas’ life in New York City.

So the story manages to touch on a bit of nostalgia – without diving into the dark corners of either of their psyches. That they have places that feel nostalgic in the story is a reminder that, although the writing of this series has taken 30 years of the author’s and the reader’s time, it has also encompassed a bit over three years in Dallas’ and Roarke’s lives.

A lot has changed for both of them, and for the found family they have gathered around them, in those three years, more than enough for them to get a bit nostalgic at revisiting earlier scenes, but not nearly as much change as the world outside the series has experienced in three DECADES.

I’ve said in my reviews of many of the books in this series that the cases tend to fall into two categories. Sometimes a case is just a case – and this entry in the series is definitely one of those. Sometimes the case threatens a member of Dallas and Roarke’s extended family or does a deep dive into the dark parts of one or both of their pasts. Those stories get painful, and yet they are often the most compelling of the series.

As long as they don’t happen too close together, because no one does well dredging up that much trauma too often – not even the reader.

And not that the ones that are just cases can’t also be compelling. I’m thinking particularly of Origin in Death as well as the more recent Faithless in Death. But this one just wasn’t, and that’s because the killer was even more of a ‘dooser’ (that’s dick+loser) than the villain in Random in Death.

Come to think of it, their dooserness wasn’t the only thing the two villains had in common. Which doesn’t help the case for the story or the doosers.

There also wasn’t nearly as much news about the fam as I normally find both comforting and amusing in this particular entry in the series. This could also be my own disappointment carrying over to my feelings about the whole thing, as I was REALLY looking forward to reading this and it just wasn’t as compelling or comforting a read as I hoped.

Your reading mileage may certainly vary.

Howsomever, the next book in the series, Bonded in Death, looks fascinating as it looks like a trip to the angst factory, not for Dallas or Roarke, but for Roarke’s father-figure, his majordomo Summerset. Hopefully this new book, coming in February, 2025, will represent a return to form after Passions in Death and Random in Death, which were okay but just not up to the series’ usual high standards.

#BookReview: Random in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
#BookReview: Random in Death by J.D. RobbRandom in Death (In Death, #58) 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 #58
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on January 23, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

In the new crime thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling J.D. Robb, a small and easily concealed weapon wreaks havoc, and the killer is just a face in the crowd.
Jenna’s parents had finally given in, and there she was, at a New York club with her best friends, watching the legendary band Avenue A, carrying her demo in hopes of slipping it to the guitarist, Jake Kincade. Then, from the stage, Jake catches her eye, and smiles. It’s the best night of her life.It’s the last night of her life.
Minutes later, Jake’s in the alley getting some fresh air, and the girl from the dance floor comes stumbling out, sick and confused and deathly pale. He tries to help, but it’s no use. He doesn’t know that someone in the crowd has jabbed her with a needle—and when his girlfriend Nadine arrives, she knows the only thing left to do for the girl is call her friend, Lieutenant Eve Dallas.
After everyone on the scene is interviewed, lab results show a toxic mix of substances in the victim’s body—and for an extra touch of viciousness, the needle was teeming with infectious agents. Dallas searches for a pattern: Had any boys been harassing Jenna? Was she engaging in risky behavior or caught up in something shady? But there are no obvious clues why this levelheaded sixteen-year-old, passionate about her music, would be targeted.
And that worries Dallas. Because if Jenna wasn’t targeted, if she was just the random, unlucky victim of a madman consumed by hatred, there are likely more deaths to come.

My Review:

The case in Random in Death turns out to be, well, just a bit random. Even more random than I thought it would turn out to be. Which I’ll get back in a bit.

A young woman is having the night of her life. Her favorite band is onstage, performing a free concert just for the under-21 non-drinking crowd at the place where the band got their start. Jenna Harbrough a musician herself, and a dedicated one, and she’s hoping for the opportunity to give her demo disk to the band’s lead singer.

Because if he hears it, she knows she’ll get her shot at the bright lights, just like the members of Avenue A did twenty years ago.

It’s not hyperbole, or youthful wishing thinking. She’s got everything it takes to make it to the top. Except time.

Jenna is killed that night by someone who cares nothing for her, her dreams, her life – or honestly even her death. All that matters to him is that she is just the kind of girl who would never give him the time of day – just like everyone else in his life.

So he cuts her down and plans to do it again and again until someone finally sees him for who and what he really is. For ALL the possible meanings of that. He believes that when he’s finished he’ll get what he deserves.

And he will. Eve Dallas, the entire Homicide Unit of the NYPSD, and all of the people she has gathered around herself, are going to make damn sure of it.

Escape Rating B: Learning how all my ‘book friends’ were doing in this latest entry in the In Death series (after last fall’s Payback in Death) was the perfect read for me at the end of this week. This series is a comfort read for me, and my brain was pretty much TOAST. Burnt toast, at that.

But this is a rare case where the timing was perfect for falling into the familiarity of it all, but the book I fell into wasn’t. Perfect, that is.

The books in this series usually contain two elements, one being the case that Dallas and Company have to solve, and the other being what’s going on with everyone in their constantly expanding found fam.

This particular entry in the series was great – as always – on the found fam side of the equation, but the case, not so much.

Because the villain really was exactly what the kids who knew him claimed he was. He was a dooser. What’s a dooser, you’re asking? As did Dallas, Roarke and every other adult who became part of finding this dooser.

Dooser is one of those on the nose portmanteau words, in this case a combination of ‘dick’ and ‘loser’. Because he so very much embodies that combination. Which is what ultimately catches him up and brings him down.

And it kind of blunts the impact of his crime spree, because he’s just so very ‘lame’, to use vernacular that is closer to our time than theirs.

Because his victims were not exactly as random as we’d like them to be, at least not to anyone other than him. The case would have been more riveting if he’d been a bit more competent at it. Not that I actually want serial killers to be more competent, but once Dallas had one thread to pull his whole house of cards came down very, very fast.

The leading cause of death among women is men – and this is such a prime, chilling example of that. Particularly at the beginning, when it seemed like he was deliberately cutting down young women who are focused on their future careers and NOT looking for so-called traditional roles..

He wasn’t just killing them – he was killing their promise and their future and their possibilities and it seemed deliberate. Except that’s not what this villain cared about at all. Because he’s just a dooser incel who’s gone apeshit because he’s certain that he is absolutely entitled to the sex they’re not putting out for him – but are for everyone else. Hell, just for the fact that they’re not even noticing he exists.

So for all of his meticulous planning and serious science smarts, he was, in the end, just a loser. So it’s no surprise at all that Dallas put him in a cage. It didn’t even seem like it was all that hard to catch him, because he made so many mistakes from his very first murder. His crime spree was terrible, and the clock ticking was very loud, but he was such a loser that the mystery of the thing faded relatively quickly.

But it was still a whole lot of fun to see the progress being made on the house that Mavis and Leonardo are building to share with Peabody and McNab, that Jenkinson is rapidly filling the shoes that his promotion to Detective Sergeant entitles him to, and that there’s every bit as much romance – if not a little bit more – in Dallas’ and Roarke’s marriage.

And especially that Galahad is still very much, large, in charge, and all CAT. Just the way he should be.

The next book in the In Death series is Passions in Death, coming in September. I can’t wait to see what case and/or crisis Dallas and Company have to face next!

Review: Payback in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Payback in Death by J.D. RobbPayback in Death (In Death, #57) 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 #57
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 5, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A retired colleague's suspicious death puts Lt. Eve Dallas on the case in Payback in Death, the electrifying new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author J.D. Robb.
Lt. Eve Dallas is just home from a long overdue vacation when she responds to a call of an unattended death. The victim is Martin Greenleaf, retired Internal Affairs Captain. At first glance, the scene appears to be suicide, but the closer Eve examines the body, the more suspicious she becomes.
An unlocked open window, a loving wife and family, a too-perfect suicide note—Eve's gut says it's a homicide. After all, Greenleaf put a lot of dirty cops away during his forty-seven years in Internal Affairs. It could very well be payback—and she will not rest until the case is closed.

My Review:

The case in Payback in Death is a fascinating one that could just as easily work in a contemporary police procedural as it does in their near-future world, because cases about ‘who watches the watchers’ are always relevant, and raise interesting questions about just how much of that watching is necessary and who watches the watchers who watch.

There’s a rabbit hole there that this story doesn’t have to go down, because retired NYPSD Internal Affairs captain Martin Greenleaf honored his badge and his service during a career spent on that often thankless watch.

Now he’s dead, and it’s Dallas’ job to stand for him. Because whoever killed him did a really poor job of faking his suicide. The man was murdered in his own home, and left for his wife to find. But fate intervened in the person of a detective that Greenleaf mentored. A detective who may have struck out once and badly with Dallas, but who knows she’ll bring her best to the case of the man who stood in for his father.

Which, in the end, is what this case turns out to be about. Father-figures, and the devastation they leave in their wake when they go down. Whether that happens in the line of duty – as it did for Martin Greenleaf in spite of his retirement – or whether it happens because someone like Greenleaf discovers that a man who should have at least been a hero to his family, was someone that those watchers not only watched, but ultimately discovered had feet of clay up to the knees.

Escape Rating B: At this point, I’m here to see how all my ‘book friends’ are doing after whatever happened in the previous book in the series (which in this case was Encore in Death). I just plain enjoy spending time with Dallas and Roarke’s ever-growing ‘family’ and am always happy to catch up with the gang. It doesn’t matter whether the particular case is all that interesting, and it doesn’t matter what kind of case it is. I just like these folks a lot and want to be sure they’re all still okay.

That being said, at 57 books and counting, the In Death series breaks down into three kinds of stories. First are the cases that are just cases – like the case in Payback in Death. It’s appropriately puzzling, the motives are twisted and the clues are deeply buried at first and convoluted to the end, and it’s an important case that requires that Dallas and company bring their “A” game to get it solved, but in the end it’s still just a case that gives the NYPSD a chance to prove they are the best at what they do – which they are.

The second kind of story are the ones where someone is threatening one or more members of Dallas and Roarke’s extended family. Those get messy. Always interesting, often revelatory about their pasts as well as their present, but those cases stick much closer to home and get more emotional, no matter how many of NYPSD’s finest get involved by the end.

And then there’s the third kind of story, which can dig itself into either of the above. The stories that are trips to the angst factory because they bring back the specters of either Roarke’s or Dallas’ horrifyingly terrible, thoroughly abusive childhoods. Those stories are always hard because I’ve come to care about all the characters a great deal and I hate seeing them suffer again in their present over the crap in their pasts.

This was a case that turned out to be just a case – no matter how much the perpetrator tried to make it more than that. And failed.

But it was still riveting and held my interest from the first page to the last because the story was every bit as relevant today as it is in Dallas’ time. Cops are human – and all of Dallas’ crew are certainly that, from Peabody’s pink coats to Reinecke’s eye-watering ties to Dallas’ own inability to make sense out of cliches and figures of speech – because they mostly don’t if you dissect the words.

Someone does need to watch the watchers, to police the police, to make sure that flawed human beings, because we are all flawed human beings including the police, don’t take the ability to use force and even deadly force to the point where it becomes perceived as the right to do so – because it isn’t.

Part of what made this work for me was the way that it went into the amount of painstaking work that was required to dig through everything that Greenleaf had been part of in a long career to see where the motives might be, no matter how deeply buried they were.

And that the investigation displayed yet again the reasons that Dallas and her squad are the best at what they do.

The part that cast a bit of a pall over the riveting case was that the ‘B’ plot of the story, the sidebar case of the now (former) detective who went off the rails and took a swing at Dallas, didn’t feel like it got either explained or resolved – or at least not to this reader’s satisfaction.

Which did not stop me from reading Payback in Death in a single sitting, as I often do with each, always much anticipated, entry in this series. Obviously, I’ll be back in Dallas’ early 2060s New York City for book 58(!), Random in Death, coming in January, 2024. I’m already full of anticipation!

Review: Encore in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Encore in Death by J.D. RobbEncore in Death (In Death, #56) 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 #56
Pages: 384
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 7, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

It was a glittering event full of A-listers, hosted by Eliza Lane and Brant Fitzhugh, a celebrity couple who’d conquered both Hollywood and Broadway. And now Eve Dallas has made her entrance—but not as a guest. After raising a toast, Fitzhugh fell to the floor and died, with physical symptoms pointing to cyanide, and the police have crashed the party.
From all accounts, he wasn’t the kind of star who made enemies. Everyone loved him—even his ex-wife. And since the champagne cocktail that killed him was originally intended for Eliza, it’s possible she was the real target, with a recently fired assistant, a bitter rival, and an obsessed fan in the picture. With so many attendees, staff, and servers, Eve has her work cut out determining who committed murder in the middle of the crowd—and what was their motivation. As one who’s not fond of the spotlight herself, she dreads the media circus surrounding a case like this. All she wants is to figure out who’s truly innocent, and who’s only acting that way…

My Review:

This one is all about what Dallas refers to as ‘the marriage rules’. While that’s the way she thinks of them, they’re not exactly ‘rules’ and they’re not just about marriage. What she’s really thinking about are all the often little things about one’s life that change – or at least should – when another person becomes part of that life. It’s about acknowledging the effect that having another person deeply a part of your life and how things change as a result. It can be as simple as realizing that if you’re running late you need to text that person that you’ll miss dinner to understanding that you have to be present for things that are important to them and in all cases very much vice versa.

Figuring out what those ‘marriage rules’ are in her own marriage is a work in progress for Dallas. She expected to go through life alone – she certainly never expected to fall in love and get married to anyone, let alone to an ex-thief turned business mogul. All of which is pretty much the story of the entire In Death series starting with Naked in Death, 56(!) books ago and STILL counting.

In the context of Encore in Death, however, those marriage rules trip Dallas up. Not in regards to her own marriage, but in the way that she has come to see the world and the people in it.

When she’s called to a swanky party of Broadway and Hollywood glitterati at an even swankier penthouse apartment, both she – and we – are probably expecting something along the lines of rich people behaving badly until it gets someone killed. Dallas may be capable of setting aside her preconceived notions when it comes to investigating a murder scene, but the readers don’t have to.

But that’s not what the investigation turns up. The victim, Brant Fitzhugh, and his still-weeping widow Eliza Lane were the real Tinseltown fairy tale. They didn’t just pretend devotion – they truly were. And people didn’t just give lip service to the idea that Fitzhugh was a wonderful person – they meant it. No snide remarks, no catty asides, no equivocation. People really can’t imagine he had any enemies and Dallas’ investigation doesn’t uncover any.

There weren’t any money problems, there weren’t any financial shenanigans, both Fitzhugh and Lane were wealthy in their own rights so it wouldn’t have been about money and there was absolutely no extramarital hanky-panky on either side.

The widow, on the other hand, well, there were plenty of people who at the very least didn’t like her much. At all. If she were the corpse there would be plenty of suspects. Which is when, based on the evidence, it really starts to look like the literal poisoned chalice was meant for her and he was just drinking the wrong drink at the wrong time.

Dallas should be looking really closely at the widow. It’s textbook investigative procedure to look at everyone the victim was close to in search of their killer. After all, familiarity does breed contempt and there’s no one more familiar than a spouse or domestic partner. And that’s where those ‘marriage rules’ get just a bit in Dallas’ way.

Not that she hasn’t put plenty of widows and widowers behind bars for being the instrument of their late spouse’s becoming their late spouse, but in those cases there’s usually at least some inkling of trouble in not-exactly paradise. This time there’s nothing. Her bullshit detector is telling her that Lane really did love her husband and is truly bereft that he’s gone.

And that bullshit detector is totally, utterly correct. While leading Dallas and the investigation down the primrose path at the same time.

Escape Rating B: I was so very grateful to sink into the comfort of yet another absorbing case with Dallas and Roarke that I’m tempted to give this one all the stars because it was absolutely the right book at the right time for this reader, particularly after yesterday’s rant-fest of a book.

All things considered, however, this isn’t one of the great cases in Dallas’ career – not nearly as absorbing in itself as last year’s Faithless in Death for example, which was both terrific as a mystery/suspense story and as well as just showcasing how uber-competent Eve and her team are.

The problem, at least for this reader, with Encore in Death is that the motive for the initial murder feels like really weak sauce. All the crap that Dallas discovers when she finally starts digging in the right place showed a pattern that was considerably more interesting and diabolical, but the reason the initial murder happens and brings down the perpetrator’s whole lifelong house of cards was just a bit meh.

Not that it isn’t always good to see how Dallas and her whole team are doing, not that it isn’t always fun to visit that bullpen, and not that I’m not always happy to learn that Galahad the cat is still ruling the mansion that Roarke built.

It was also refreshing to read a murder mystery that doesn’t center on rich people behaving badly. While I do enjoy the schadenfreude of those mysteries, such as last week’s The Skeleton Key, too much of a good thing starts to get a bit stale.

All of that being said, I very much enjoyed my visit to Dallas and Roarke’s 2060s New York City, this isn’t the book I’d put in someone’s hands if I wanted to get them hooked on the series. For those of us who already are hooked, it’s a great reading time.

Dallas, Roarke and the gang will be back in September in Payback in Death. I absolutely plan to be there!

Review: Desperation in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Desperation in Death by J.D. RobbDesperation in Death (In Death, #55) 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, thriller
Series: In Death #55
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 6, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The #1 New York Times bestselling author presents a gripping new thriller that pits homicide detective Eve Dallas against a conspiracy of exploitation and evil…
New York, 2061: The place called the Pleasure Academy is a living nightmare where abducted girls are trapped, trained for a life of abject service while their souls are slowly but surely destroyed. Dorian, a thirteen-year-old runaway who’d been imprisoned there, might never have made it out if not for her fellow inmate Mina, who’d hatched the escape plan. Mina was the more daring of the two—but they’d been equally desperate.
Unfortunately, they didn’t get away fast enough. Now Dorian is injured, terrified, and wandering the streets of New York, and Mina lies dead near the waterfront while Lt. Eve Dallas looks over the scene.
Mina’s expensive, elegant clothes and beauty products convince Dallas that she was being groomed, literally and figuratively, for sex trafficking—and that whoever is investing in this high-overhead operation expects windfall profits. Her billionaire husband, Roarke, may be able to help, considering his ties to the city’s ultra-rich. But Roarke is also worried about the effect this case is having on Dallas, as it brings a rage to the surface she can barely control. No matter what, she must keep her head clear--because above all, she is desperate for justice and to take down those who prey on and torment the innocent.

My Review:

The desperation that leads to the death that brings Eve Dallas and her ever-expanding crew onto this case is one that Eve is entirely too familiar with. It’s the desperation of a girl who has been trapped into a life where she is merely an object for other people’s abuse and other people’s pleasure.

In Eve’s case, the “person” who kept her trapped and bound was her father Richard Troy. He’s dead. He’s dead because Eve’s desperation led to her killing the bastard at a point when she just couldn’t take it anymore. She was eight years old.

Mina and Dorian were kidnapped as preteens and whisked away to the Pleasure Academy, where they are being groomed and indoctrinated to become sex slaves for wealthy, influential and disgusting people, mostly men, who will take pleasure in raping them, beating them, and quite possibly even killing them if it strikes their or their so-called friends’ fancies.

In desperation, these two girls band together and attempt to escape from their well-appointed prison. Only one of them makes it. But the discovery of the other girl’s body opens up the kind of far-reaching case that will bring closure to bunch of families, freedom to a bunch of trafficked women, and visit justice upon a bunch of scumbags, one way or another, while letting Eve exorcize one or two of her own ghosts.

If she can just get one runaway girl to trust her with the truth. No matter how dangerous for the girl, and no matter how many nightmares it will give Eve along the way.

Escape Rating B+: Desperation in Death is a solid and compelling entry in the long-running In Death series – even if it is a trip to Eve and Roarke’s personal angst-factories by proxy. Or maybe because of that fact, as we get to see them work through a few more of their demons without the case reaching directly into either of their traumatizing childhoods.

Not that what Dorian Gregg and all the other girls the Pleasure Academy trafficked have experienced isn’t more than traumatic enough to give pretty much everyone on the team a few nightmares. But the lack of a specific personal connection to either Eve or Roarke makes the story a bit easier – just a tiny bit considering the subject – for the reader to get caught up in. But we’re caught the way the rest of the team is caught – wanting to catch the really, really disgustingly awful villains rather than caught up in the unspooling of yet more of either Eve or Roarke’s personal demons.

I follow this series, all 55 books and counting! because I love the found family that surrounds Eve and Roarke – including just how endlessly surprised Eve is that she has gathered a family of any kind around herself. So one of the things that made this entry in the series so much fun to read was the way that the gang really pulled together to nab the villains.

It also helped that in this case the villains were not just truly, despicably villainous, but that their villainy had nothing to do with any mental illness or trauma. They’re just awful people who need to get their just desserts. And if those just desserts get served in hell, so much the better.

This is in contrast with the previous book in the series, Abandoned in Death, which dealt with some similar crimes but came at them from an angle where everyone was traumatized including the perpetrator. I found that one hard-going because the villain’s head was one I didn’t want to be in at all and couldn’t read the parts from their perspective.

The villains in this case are so cold and dispassionate about the whole thing, and their points of view are both few and equally icy that the only peeks we needed into their heads were superficial.

In a way, this story was at one remove from both its villains and its heroes, and that made it easier to follow the action without diving too deeply into the motivations.

All of that is a way to loop back around and say this is a solid and solidly entertaining entry in the series for long-time fans. If you love Dallas and Roarke you’ll enjoy this season’s peek into their lives as much as I did.

And I’m already looking forward to the next book in the series, Encore in Death, coming out in February. A little murder among the rich and famous should be just the ticket to warm up a winter night or two!

Review: Abandoned in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Abandoned in Death by J.D. RobbAbandoned in Death (In Death, #54) 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, thriller
Series: In Death #54
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 8, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Homicide detective Eve Dallas must untangle a twisted family history while a hostage’s life hangs in the balance—in the new In Death novel by #1 New York Times bestselling J. D. Robb.
The woman’s body was found on a bench in a New York City playground. She was clean, her hair neatly arranged, her makeup carefully applied. But other things were very wrong—like the tattoo and piercings, clearly new. The clothes, decades out of date. The fatal wound hidden beneath a ribbon around her neck. And the note: Bad Mommy, written in crayon as if by a child.
It seems clear the killer’s childhood was traumatic—a situation Eve is all too familiar with herself. Yet the clues point to a perpetrator who’d be around sixty, and there are no records of old crimes with a similar MO. What was the trigger that apparently reopened such an old wound and sent someone over the edge? When Eve learns that other young women have recently vanished, the case grows even more urgent—and to solve it she’ll need to find her way into a hidden place of dim light and concrete, into the distant past, and into the depths of a shattered mind.

My Review:

This series is a strange sort of comfort read for me, so I usually say that each entry in the series is at least a chance to visit with old friends. Sometimes it’s more, but it’s always at least that.

Abandoned in Death is one of the instances where it was also at most that. I loved seeing how Dallas, Roarke and the gang are doing, but the way this one began – and the entire case – really, seriously creeped me out.

I felt creeped enough the whole way through that I didn’t enjoy this entry in the series as much as I usually do. And I’m a bit sad about that because I was seriously looking forward to this one.

Once upon a time in Eve Dallas’ world, which is actually now in ours, a desperate and despairing young woman left her child on a church doorstep in the middle of the night. Then she drove straight into a lake and prepared to drown.

But she didn’t. Instead, she dragged herself out of the car and the water and passed out along the side of the road not too far away. She was rescued by a good Samaritan who happened to be a doctor, who took her home, treated her injuries, fell in love with her and married her.

Between the trauma of her injuries – along with the effects of her depression and her drug addiction – her life before her rescue was a complete blank. She didn’t remember the child, the drugs or the attempted suicide. She lived her life from that point forward in the here and the now and it was a good life.

In Eve Dallas’ here and now, someone dumped the corpse of a young woman in a children’s playground. The playground is just around the corner from the house that Eve’s friend Mavis is moving into, with her family. It hits MUCH too close to home, putting Eve in a bit more angst than any trip to the “angst factory” of her own.

Not that this case doesn’t have a bit of that as well.

The investigation of the case is interesting. Weird, but interesting. Weird because the body was dressed and made up to fit a certain image – that of a blonde woman in her mid-20s with a tramp stamp, a belly piercing, cheap party clothes and overdone makeup.

She’s made up to be a woman in her mid-20s in the early 2000s. All the brands, the style, the look, the colors all fit that era. Which means that if someone is getting vicarious revenge on their mother, that person is now in their 60s.

And the first thing that Dallas and company discover about the crime is that their victim isn’t the only woman taken who could be made up to fit the image. She’s just the first to die.

Escape Rating B-: So, the opening of this one weirded me out and the parts of the story that were told either from the killer’s perspective or from the mother’s distant past just didn’t work for me. I didn’t want to be inside the murderer’s head AT ALL and found myself skimming through those sections and the past bits.

Some of that may have been that the originating events were already in the past of the real world – kind of like that double-take you do when confronted with the fact that 1980 is as far away from 2020 as 1940 is from 1980. That time passes way more quickly than we like to think about.

However, whether it was because of skimming those bits quickly or because the murderer was simply very good at hiding in plain sight I had absolutely no idea who was doing it before Dallas gets there herself. I recognized that the wild goose she chased at one point was a red herring, but hadn’t figured out who the real culprit was until the investigators got there.

That there’s a clock ticking more obviously in this case from the usual made some of the normal cop shop gallows humor fall a bit flat – at least for me. No one has much of a sense of humor in this one.

At the same time the rather humorous blossoming of young love between Feeney’s intern and Nadine Furst’s intern (and their respective mentors reaction to same) was a nice little bright stop that did fit well into the story. It also points out just how huge the team ended up being on this one as Dallas needed people to investigate not just the murders happening now, not just whodunnit, but also who in the past it was being done to in proxy.

They were solving an equation for multiple unknowns, and that level of research and search and cooperation and puzzle solving was, as always, fascinating. Whatever team Dallas puts together for a case always gives a master class in competence and this time was no exception.

In spite of the mess that’s uncovered at the end.

All of this adds up to Abandoned in Death being an interesting entry in this marvelous long-running series that wasn’t quite as satisfying for me as they usually are. That’s happened before, as is expected in a series that is 54 books and counting and shows absolutely no sign of stopping. Next up is Desperation in Death, coming this fall and I’m already looking forward to it!