Divided in Death (In Death, 18)

Rating:
Summary: Always good to see Eve and Roarke again
Review: A man and his lover are stabbed to death in the middle of a tryst. Homicide Detective Eve Dallas is called to the scene and finds the man's wife standing over the bodies with their blood on her hands. She's got means, motive and opportunity. A slam dunk? Not really. The wife in question is Reva Ewing, an ex- Secret Service agent who is a hero for "taking one" for the president and an employee of Roarke's. Reva is spear-heading a top secret government contract to counter a destructive computer virus that could cripple the country. Eve and Roarke believe that Reva's involvement in this project is the reason she is being so clearly set up. The two of them team up along with the regulars Peabody, Feeney and McNabb to figure out who wanted Reva's cheating husband killed, why they wanted Reva set up and why a few other civilians are turning up dead.

For me the good part of this book isn't really the murder mystery. If you've read the other 15 or so books in the series, you've already sussed out Eve's rhythms. She remains consistent in how she works, how she thinks and where she connects the dots. As far as plots go, this one was so-so and the villain wasn't even very interesting or scary.

No, what made this book good continues to be the story arc of Eve's dark past and her relationship with her husband and the people who surround her. From the very first book "Naked In Death" when we first meet Eve we are in a nightmare with her as she relives her horrific childhood. Over the course of the series Roberts has handed out dribs and drabs of information so that Eve has learned bit by bit more about her past. Obviously Eve has the resources to learn more but she chooses not to. Yet this case, brings her past starkly into the present. Not only does Eve unwittingly learn much more about her past she but it also brings her into direct conflict with Roarke. Although Eve and Roarke have clashed in the past over their own ideas of justice and vengeance, this time the difference isn't just philosophical but deeply personal. They spend a large part of the story divided and uncommunicative with each other. It is a nice, realistic bump in a relationship that in series time is only about two years old. It brings it home that even though they are deeply in love and quite devoted, Eve and Roarke still have a lot to learn about each other.

If you haven't read the other books in the series, you could follow the plot very easily. But there are a lot of references to people and names in the previous books that you could miss some necessary subtext. Not the best of the series but a good, comfortable installment.

I recommend

Rating:
Summary: Eve and Roarke at their best
Review: As always, part of what I love with Robb is the development of Eve and Roarke. Parts of the book dragged (as most books sometimes do) but I still love how things are between Eve and Roarke. Favorite part of the book is when they resolve their differences.

Rating:
Summary: I love this series...
Review: I was really looking forward to reading this one on my trip back from Lotusphere, as it was released the last week of January. But she crossed me up by not going directly to paperback, and I can't pay $21 for a book I'll read in two days. So, after a relatively short wait at the library, I was able to enjoy my favorite author.. Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb in Divided In Death. And it was well worth the wait.

In this latest offering, Eve Dallas is asked by Rourke to handle a possible murder case that appears to have been committed by his head of security, Eva Ewing. Rourke has a real fondness for the lady and her mother, and wants Dallas to make sure it's not a setup. The murder was of Ewing's husband and her best friend when she learns of the affair they were having. The lovers are killed in bed and everything points to Ewing as the killer. But for Dallas, it's just a bit "too" clean, and she quickly clears Ewing of the murder. But if not her, who? The plot revolves around spies for a Homeland Security group, a rouge hacker underground, Rourke's security company, and the brother of the husband. Plenty of twists and turns in this plot.

And for character development, Rourke hacks the computer files of the Homeland Security group and finds out some previously unknown information involving Eve's childhood traumas. He wants to kill those responsible, but Dallas knows she can't be a cop and stand aside if she knows what Rourke wants to do. They have to determine what's most important to each of them as they work through this crisis.

As usual, great story and wonderful characters. I'm really glad that Roberts can crank these out so quickly, as I am forever waiting for the next one in the series to come out each time I finish the current one.

Rating:
Summary: "Portrait" and "Purity" tough Eve Dallas acts to follow
Review: We've read the entire 18-book "Robb" series and generally enjoy all the stories immensely. As usually happens with long-running characters, we've come to feel intimate with both the leading couple, NYPD Homicide Lt. Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband Roarke, as well as a fine supporting cast of cops Peabody, Feeney, and McNab (among others); quirky friend Mavis; and annoying "houseman"/valet Summerset. The writing and plot crafting skills of Nora Roberts (posing herein as JD Robb) created absolute powerhouses in her recent novels "Portrait" and "Purity in Death", leaving us emotionally stimulated and intellectually entertained. But our hope for more at that level was not to be fulfilled in "Divided".

The plot centers around an artist who is caught cheating by his wife, Reva, a security specialist who works at one of Roarke's firms. Reva is found at the scene of her husband and his lover's murder, but it seems immediately to be a frame; and a subsequent murder or two confirms that suspicion. The cop team pretty much takes residence at the Roarke mansion, fearing that security is so sensitive an issue on this case that working out of Police HQ is ill advised. The investigation soon embroils the Homeland Security agency, which is an interesting ploy that allows Robb to comment from the setting of the book at future year 2059 on the "history" and practices of that government entity. A wrinkle about Eve's own troubled past with an abusive father surfaces during the investigation that causes a huge riff between herself and Roarke -- and the resolution of that strain on their relationship is a strong sub-plot to the mystery. In the end, the unscrambling of several dead computers as well as Eve's typical perceptive scrutiny of the clues, leads to identifying and capturing the real bad guys.

What left us a little cold about the story was the dominance of the sub-plot. While the exacting nature of the relationship between our two principals is a more than recurring theme in the whole series (Robb admits its part of her reason for writing it), it seemed just a little too overdone and a little too predictable in its resolution -- and thus seemed to drag down the action of the middle book. Additionally, the seclusion of the team at the house left us little or no variety of character interactions and scene settings, and got a little boring ere it was all over. Overall, while we never fail to enjoy each new entry in the "In Death" set, and blessedly do not find the characters getting stale, this particular novel just didn't seem as well composed as many of the others. So Robb fans won't want to miss it, but casual readers might rather enjoy some of the better entries mentioned above.