STRANGERS IN DEATH
Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb
Berkley
Thriller
Hardcover: 9780399154706
Paperback: 9780425222898

• Read an Excerpt

It’s 2060 in New York City. Much has changed in police work, but little has changed in crime. People still kill people. Lieutenant Eve Dallas has another big case --- and another girly thing to do. She relishes the first and dreads the latter. Fortunately, she has the support of a good man to help her and/or torment her over her lack of feminine interests.

Insinuating himself into her professional life more every day, Eve’s hunky husband Roarke is a huge help --- and a very sexy one. He lends a hand with her cases, but always with an underlying motive for being around her. And he grabs any chance he has to engage her in a little non-police work. She doesn’t often mind. Roarke has good looks, Irish charm, big bucks, playful impishness on his side and an overactive romantic bone: “Every minute with you, I’m alive. I never knew before there were pieces of me unborn, just waiting for you. I’m alive with you, Eve.” She sighed, touched his cheek. “We’d better get out of here. We’re getting mush all over the pool.” Was that before or after they made love --- again?

This case gets to Eve in a way that many others before it have not, including the one that featured her as a prime target. She could deal with that, but this victim shouldn’t have died the way he did. “It hits me. Some of them do, and it hits me because he was a nice man who loved his wife and used his money and position to do good things.”

Thomas A. Anders --- philanthropist, loving husband and extremely rich man --- is discovered dead in his bedroom, in a highly compromising position. The scene does not suggest accident but screams “Murder.” With so much planning required to set this stage, it seems as though someone hated him a great deal. But subsequent interviews fail to turn up anyone with a bad word to say for dear old Tommy.

Cops always take a close look at the spouse, especially when vast sums of money stand to be inherited. Mrs. Anders --- Ava --- was out of town at the time of her husband’s death, and her alibi is unshakable. Besides, her reaction to the news of his murder is an appropriate amount of upset mixed with the right touch of sadness and horror. Why, then, does Eve put Ava at the top of the list of suspects? It’s just a feeling she has, and the lieutenant’s instincts are usually spot on.

Maybe spurred on by the victim’s example or perhaps just following her heart, Eve does her own philanthropic thing. She indulges her soft spot for the underdog and rewards those desperately trying to be good citizens. She allows her tough veneer to crack around deserving downtrodden types. But people who allow themselves to be constant victims and don’t attempt to fight back draw her disgust and make her very unhappy. Keeping Eve happy is a wise thing to do, for she can be one rough lady, unsympathetic, even downright cold.

J.D. Robb has another blockbuster with STRANGERS IN DEATH. Her handling of Eve dealing with a case that grows very personal is flawless; the writing is tight, the dialogue snappy and the plot intriguing. The books in the In Death series are always romances wrapped around a mystery, set in the future with some old-fashioned wooing. Her latest is no exception. In fact, it may be the best of the lot --- at least, so far. I’m betting that Robb isn’t finished with Eve and Roarke yet. Now that would be criminal!

    --- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

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