It’s hard to believe this is already book SIXTY (!) in this futuristic police procedural In Death Mystery series by uber-author JD Robb. Robb is a writing machine, turning out numerous books per year under her romance author name Nora Roberts, and under her murder mystery nom de plum of JD Robb. BONDED IN DEATH is engaging and interesting, once again demonstrating that Robb/Roberts still has it!
Robb mixes up what kind of mystery development the reader gets in her series. BONDED IN DEATH is one of the kind where the readers know who the murderer is fairly early on in the book, but we get the enjoyment of watching the police procedural part roll out as Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her partner Peabody get their man.
Much of what I love about this series is the found family that Eve has built for herself. As with the different styles of mystery development, though, book by book, we don’t always get to enjoy a lot of interactions between Eve and her best friends and colleagues. BONDED IN DEATH is lighter on interpersonal storylines, which makes me a little sad.
This time, though, we get to see more of Roarke’s majordomo (and father figure) Summerset. It’s pretty cool what we learn about Summerset’s time in the Urban Wars that swept the globe. The aging spies who help Summerset and Eve solve the case are a delight to read about.
BONDED IN DEATH is also lighter on the romance and on Eve’s history of childhood abuse. While we see a lot of her gazillionaire husband Roarke, he is once again acting mostly as another investigator here rather than as her loving husband. As the series goes on, Roarke seems to spend less and less time running his multibillion-dollar empire and instead spends his time helping Eve run computer searches and break into locked crime scenes.
Robb’s BONDED IN DEATH is a diverting police procedural with hints of romance and a delightful secondary cast of characters. Robb can be counted on to bring us an interesting crime and some pleasingly tense moments of danger and discovery as the criminal is inevitably brought to justice.
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…
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