My Reading Nook

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