Well I think that I will wrap up my “In Death” mini-reading spree with these. I will probably come back to the series to “catch up” so to speak with my reviews down the line. I have read the entire series and novellas, I just never had much of the energy to go back and post reviews on Amazon. A few years back there was a huge blow up in the “In Death” community when there was a big issued with a huge continuity error as well as a reveal of something that had never even been talked about. I recall that was my first critical review of the series and my Amazon review comments got ugly. I deleted my Amazon reviews for many reasons, but the fans of series going into comments and starting crap and Amazon not doing a blessed thing about it, was definitely up there. Anyway, I will eventually get back to posting all of my reviews and I hope that people find them helpful. I really do like this series, I just feel disappointed that the latest (20?) have just been so samey and there’s no real tension for me in the series. There are some older sparks here and there, but the beginning of this series was so freaking good.
“Judgment in Death” (4 stars)-Eve investigates when a fellow police officer is found beaten to death. We have the return of Internal Affairs characters in this one (which I honestly wonder why Internal Affairs has not been involved with some of the more recent cases) and Eve trying to juggle what was going on with this cop. The case is interesting because the killer seems to be going after bad cops (yeah this felt….timely with everything going on in the U.S. right now). So Eve was great in this one but Roarke’s past has come between them again. I am also confused by how old Roarke is. I think early 30s, but the bad guy in this case has links to Roarke from 10 years earlier so he was what early 20s being a crime boss? Sorry, I just didn’t buy it. I realize that this was probably the first book when I started to see the issues with Roarke being involved in her investigations. There’s also a fight between Roarke and someone else and good grief the whole thing was crazy. But the bigger issue with Roarke deciding to go behind Eve to get involved in her cases gets brought up in a later book and I think that caused a lot of fans to kind of get a bit tired of him in that aspect of things. The main reason why this was 4 stars was that it was honestly a really good mystery and there were so many suspects with motives you had no idea who was the murderer. I tried to leave the other stuff out of it, especially because one of the characters in this appears in a later book.
“Betrayal in Death” (3.5 stars)-This was a weird one. Because the killer is known and we mostly just follow things waiting for Eve and crew to catch on. These are always my least favorite of the “In Death” books because they just don’t really do anything for me when the killer is known. We honestly most have relationship issues between Eve/Roarke and Peabody/McNabb. And an old friend of Roarke’s stops by and readers realize all of the dead people are working for Roarke in some capacity. There is a death in this one but I honestly didn’t even twitch about it, probably because it was not a long time character we got to know much. What really had me leave this as 3.5 stars though is there is a whole loose plot thread about a family who was behind this and we know in later books they are still under ground. I wonder if Robb will ever revisit or not.
“Interlude in Death” (5 stars)-This was part of an anthology I still own. Yes, back in the day I bought the anthologies to tied me over for the longer releases. This one includes Laurell K. Hamilton (sigh). The other two authors I never got into. I always read their stories, but never bought any of their other works. And I stopped reading Hamilton eons ago after the adeur mess. This anthology takes places in spring 2059. I bring up the timeline because as I have noted in later reviews, the timeline has gone screwy as anything. Eve and Roarke are off planet. Eve is with Roarke to give a speech at a resort called Olympus which of course Roarke owns. This was a crazy one because a Captain Skinner in this one asks to meet with Eve and tells her he can make her a captain if she gives him Roarke….yeah you know how this was going to go. After Eve beats the mess out of a bodyguard of Skinner’s he is found dead, and then of course Eve is looked at as a suspect. The lead on this one is Darcia Angelo who we see in a later book, but I wish would appear again. This was interesting and it moves pretty fast I thought. One of the mysteries in this one though is who killed Roarke’s father. Readers of the series find out later, but it is definitely a question that was brought up by Roarke/Eve in the earlier books.
“Seduction in Death” (4.5 stars)-This one takes place in the summer of 2059 and we have Eve going alone for a bit since Roarke is in Ireland for a funeral/wake. The case is dealing with the murder of women in this one and the why behind it is kind of gross/awful. We do have some more character development in this one. McNabb and Peabody are not doing great and are fighting with each other and making everyone miserable. This of course comes down to her relationship with Charles. And what makes me smile a bit is this one has Louise in it, and this is the book where she first meets Charles and sparks fly. Honestly I like it just for that and forget about the whole murder plot in this one.
“Reunion in Death” (4.5 stars)-Once again Roarke sticks his nose in. This one involves a case that deals with a woman that Eve put away years ago. She’s out again and murdering. Pretty much the only reason to read this one is the ending where there is a straight up butt whooping of epic times between Eve and the woman. There is some character development in this one because Peabody’s family comes to town and we know that they are FreeAgers. Also I flat out forgot that this is the first time that Eve meets Mr. Mira. And we know how much she loves him. Why did I think she knew him already? I think what was nice though is that in this one we have Roarke open up to Dr. Mira about knowing about Eve’s rape by her father has affected him and how much he wishes he could undo it. It was actually a great moment between the two of them. Honestly Roarke needs therapy. But Roarke does something crappy to Eve in this one (and honestly it was crappy) that had even Peabody turning on him. Things work out in the end. Anyway, great installment.
“Purity in Death” (3.5 stars)-Sorry, this one was convoluted as anything. Once again I say that anytime Robb dabbles in “medicine” or “science fiction” type stuff in this series it does not make any sense. Heck even Feeney calls it science fiction crap in the book and it was. What was hard in this one though is that someone close to everyone gets hurt and there’s a real concern they may die. But what baffles me is that the person in question seems to be dandy after like 3 days. Science I guess. Also we have the return of Jamie in this one and no I still don’t like him. I really wish that he stop popping up in this series.