Dark in Death by J D Robb

Dark in Death (In Death, #46)

by J D Robb

"It was a stab in the dark. On a chilly February night, during a screening of Psycho in midtown, someone sunk an ice pick into the back of Chanel Rylan's neck, then disappeared quietly into the crowds of drunks and tourists in Times Square. To Chanel's best friend, who had just slipped out of the theater for a moment to take a call, it felt as unreal as the ancient black-and-white movie up on the screen. But Chanel's blood ran red, and her death was anything but fictional. Then, as Eve Dallas puzzles over a homicide that seems carefully planned and yet oddly personal, she receives a tip from an unexpected source: an author of police thrillers who recognizes the crime--from the pages of her own book. Dallas doesn't think it's coincidence, since a recent strangulation of a sex worker resembles a scene from her writing as well. Cops look for patterns of behavior: similar weapons, similar MOs. But this killer seems to find inspiration in someone else's imagination, and if the theory holds, this may be only the second of a long-running series. The good news is that Eve and her billionaire husband Roarke have an excuse to curl up in front of the fireplace with their cat, Galahad, reading mystery stories for research. The bad news is that time is running out before the next victim plays an unwitting role in a murderer's deranged private drama -- and only Eve can put a stop to a creative impulse gone horribly, destructively wrong."--

Reviewed by EBookObsessed on

5 of 5 stars

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One of the more interesting In Death books in quite a while. This investigation kept you on your toes.

Eve is all about the sexy times in this latest In Death novel.  The bane of her existance is on vacation and Eve is taking full advantage of the Summerset-free house, going as far as to suggest to Roarke that they need to have sex in as many rooms as possible before his return.  Roarke is alway ready to do what he must to make his wife happy so he takes (well...more than) one for the team to make the Lieutenant happy.

But not everything is lighthearted for our favorite murder cop.  The most recent murder to grace her board is quite unusual when a young woman is murdered during a recent vid release.  And gets more bizarre when a famous novelist steps forward to point out that her murder mirrored one of her earlier releases. 

Eve understands that a fan has taken their obsession too far and is recreating the murders out of a series featuring P.I. Deanna Dark.   Now Eve knows what the murdering is planning, all she has to do is read the next book, but the problem is where the murderer will strike next or how they choose the victims.  In a city of several million people, that shouldn't be too hard, right?

I love this series.  I absolutely love all the characters and how even the secondary characters are fleshed out.  I love crime dramas, romance and scifi so this series was just perfect to me.    But I felt that the last few books relied on Eve lucking out and either stumbling one that one person who puts her on the killer's path or someone her tracks her down to give her that tiny piece of information that cracks the case. It was all a little too lucky.  And yes, while in this story the novelist shows up to declare that the murders were similar to her stories, knowing how the next murder is going to happen doesn't necessary give you the name of the next victim.  

For the first time in a while, Eve and Peabody are working very hard to investigate this killer, and the killer isn't even important enough to warrant too much time either. We don't spend much time at all in the killer's head. Who the killer is is almost unimportant because this person is unimportant and that is why this person is recreating murders from a popular crime series.

The murders are what is important and they are quite random since the killer isn't getting revenge on anyone but the writer of the novels. The killer is recreating deaths from the stories so only setting the scene is important, not the person being murdered except to the the extent that they fit the part in the killer's mind.  With eight books in the series, Eve and Peabody know what the killer plans for the next several deaths, but trying to figure out who and where and when in a City as big as New York requires all their skills as detectives and bring in most of the homicide division and EDD as well, and of course, Roarke pops in here and there to help out a bit.

Overall, this was a well investigated case by Eve and Peabody with lots of sexy Roarke time and just about everything that makes the In Death series so popular.

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  • Started reading
  • 8 January, 2018: Finished reading
  • 8 January, 2018: Reviewed