As J.D. Robb writes more and more of her “Death” series of books featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas, the better the plots get and the more suspenseful the writing.

Nora Roberts writing under the pseudonym of J.D. Robb incorporates her formidable talent in creating tension filled scenes between romantic interests into the murder/suspense genre and does quite well with it! She still writes sizzling intimate scenes between love interests, but ramps up the complexity of these novels with interesting suspense plots.

Salvation in Death begins with a local priest being poisoned by the wine he’s presenting as the sacrament at the funeral of one of New York’s most beloved citizens of the year 2060. Lt. Dallas’ investigation soon reveals that this priest is not all that he seems to be.

Then, before Eve can close in on the killer of the priest, a popular television evangelist is killed in like manner! This throws Eve off the scent but only for a minute as she quickly determines that, despite the similar m.o. and profession of the murder victims, this is a copy-cat murder and swiftly brings the murderer to justice.

All throughout the book is the recurrent theme of child abuse, rape and gang wars. Eve herself was abused and raped by her father as a child, and when it became too much, she killed her own father in self defense. It’s because of this past that she is empathetic to several of the individuals she sees as prime suspects in the murder of the false priest.

Eve wastes no time on building bed frames to house her case against one parishioner with a long-established motive for wanting the false priest dead. She just has to tie the prior gang moll to the actual crime.

Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb
Published by Putnam Adult (November 4, 2008)

• ISBN-10: 0399155228
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155222

Kinsey Millhone is someone I can totally relate to. She’s independent, smart and her friends tend to be older people. She doesn’t like to jog, but makes herself jog in order to stay in shape. It also helps offset the poor diet of Quarter Pounders she likes to live on. Harry, her landlord gave her a headset for Christmas so she has music to jog to — the book is set in 1978 which is pre-MP3 players, so it’s more like a Walkman. Harry is 86 years young. Her neighbor, Gus is also in his 80’s.

When Gus falls and dislocates his shoulder, his only living relative, Melanie - a great niece - flies to California from New York to make decisions about his living condition. She decides he needs a companion and hires Kinsey to check out the only applicant for the job.

Solana Rojas is not what she seems. She’s stolen this identity and it’s not the first time shes stolen one either. Kinsey, although not at all comfortable with the woman can find nothing on her resume to warrant telling Gus’ niece not to hire her and Melanie is desperate to get someone to stay with Gus so she can return to New York and her job.

Once hired, Solana begins taking over Gus’ life, his bank accounts and selling off his antiques and painting collection. She’s also sedating Gus to keep his irascible personality at bay as well as keep him confused and unaware of all the things she’s doing to ruin his life. Kinsey picks up that all is not well with Gus and when she sees a cutoff notice for his electricity bill and then sneeks a peek at his bank book, she sure something is wrong.

She calls a county agency for elder abuse, but the investigator is young and not savvy to the ways of the accomplished abuser, and Solana is able to convince her that Kinsey has a grudge against her and the complaint is totally unfounded. Solana has alredy gotten  herself appointed as Gus’  conservator under her real name of Cristina Tasinato which gives her total power over Gus’ finances and property.

Now it’s a race against time to  see if Kinsey can save Gus from the clutches of this wily and tough woman who has stolen from elderly people before.

Sue Grafton’s character, Kinsey is a well written one –she’s not miss perfect and revels in that fact. She’s no good at personal relationships that are deep as is evidenced by her two divorces and the fact that she lives alone. I’ve watched Kinsey grow and mature through the books Ms. Grafton has written around her. All set in a smallish town in California.

The protagonist in this book is probably one of the best that Ms. Grafton has created in this  series. She’s complicated and yet we see her evil and abhor the things she does to her elderly patients.

T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton
Published by The Berkley Publishing Group 2008
ISBN:978-0-425-22484-7

Every once in awhile an established author will use his or her most well known character to put across a social more or call attention to an issue.

James Patterson has done just that with Cross Country.

Alex Cross becomes embroiled in a search for a murderer that takes him to Africa where he witnesses many atrocities and the conditions that the people of Nigeria, Darfur and the Sudan live in every day of their lives. He witnesses one brutal murder after another, genocide in action and is not only repelled by it, but galvanized to do what he can to stop the killings.

Indeed, Dr. Cross should have gotten some insurance quotes before he left because he barely escapes with his life only to return to Washington DC where his beloved family is kidnapped and held while the kidnappers and the CIA try to determine the secrets that Cross brought out of Africa with him.

Secrets that if let loose, might very well start a global conflagration the likes of which the world has never seen!

Not for the weak stomached reader, this Cross is blunt force trauma in written form. Read at your own risk!

Cross Country by James Patterson
Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-316-01872-2