Title– Vendetta in Death
Author– J.D. Robb (Also known as Nora Roberts)
Publisher– Piatkus. Sept 19
Synopsis
When a family man is tortured, killed and dumped in front of his home for all the world to see, Eve Dallas knows she is on the hunt for a particularly dangerous killer.
But Death uncovers secrets and the killer leaves a note revealing the victim to be far from the family man he appears. Soon another body with a murky past is uncovered and Eve is in a race against time to stop a serial killer whose brand of justice Eve can’t completely disagree with.
Review
Anything by Nora Roberts or J. D. Robb is usually an Insta-read for me. Her fantasy romance books, which usually come as trilogies, are full of feisty female characters, strong men and plenty of sexual tension.
But her ‘In Death’ series is definitely my favourite.
I’ve mentioned this series before in a post and so I won’t go on about the premise as I do intend to do an In-depth In Death review at some point.
My previous post on In Death series
https://www.brokengeekdesigns.com/2018/10/22/book-review-leverage-in-death-by-j-d-robb/
In this book Eve discovers a body mutilated and castrated pinned with a poem from ‘Lady Justice’ denouncing the man and his past. Eve swiftly discovers that this man was far from the sweet family man that he appeared. As she works to try to uncover who could possibly have killed him, another body is found. Another man with a dark past.
The race is on as Eve tries to uncover the killer despite wondering if these men got what they deserve.
As always the story is fast-paced and gripping. I put aside all other books and finished this within 3 hours. She never fails to give a structured mystery with well thought out characters and motives that, at least to the killer, make perfect sense.
I was a little disappointed that she seemed to pinpoint the killer quite early on and to have this confirmed for us in the next chapter. I know that the police do tend to have hunches based on years of detective work and experience and Eve has great instincts when it comes to her line of work, but I think I would have liked to have the mystery for a bit longer. Maybe tease us with the killer’s thoughts but not reveal who the actual murderer was.
That said it was a solid tale and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Summary
It was a great addition to the In Death series. No fantastic new plot lines or over-arching developments but plenty of cameos from our favourite side-pieces.
My favourite parts of these are always the addition of the extra characters and the way they drop in and out of Eve’s periphery. They are fully rounded and have been getting on with their own lives. They aren’t waiting around for the story but have things to do other than revolve around Eve. I love the little peeks we have into how things are going with Mavis and Bella or how some of Roarke’s businesses are doing.
This is number 49 in the series and I hope that the 50th will be something special.
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