Product Description

Lieutenant Eve Dallas keeps the streets of New York City safe in this extraordinary series. But even she makes mistakes, and is haunted by those she couldn't save-and the killers she couldn't capture. When the body of a young brunette is found in East River Park, marked by signs of prolonged and painful torture, Eve is catapulted back to nine years ago. A man the media tagged The Groom-because he put silver rings on the fingers of his victims-had the city on edge with a killing spree that took the lives of four women in fifteen days. But now, The Groom has returned-and Eve's determined to finish him. Familiar with his methods, Eve knows that he has already grabbed his next victim. When it turns out that the dead woman was employed by Eve's billionaire husband, Roarke, she brings him onto the case-a move that proves fitting when it becomes chillingly clear that the killer has made it personal. And chances are that he's working up to the biggest challenge of his illustrious career-abducting a woman who will test his skills on every level and who promises to give him days and days of pleasure before she dies: Eve.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212267 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'...a satisfying novel melange of suspense, sex, fornsics and heroics' - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'Nora Roberts amazes me...' Stephen King 'sheer entertainment' GUARDIAN

About the Author
Nora Roberts is the author of more than one hundred New York Times bestsellers, with more than 300 million copies of her books in print Under the pen name J. D. Robb, she is author of the bestselling futuristic suspense series. Visit her website at www.noraroberts.com.

Customer Reviews

A pleasure as always
This is the latest title in the In Death series by JD Robb, it does stand alone but I would definately recommend starting with Naked in Death as there has been a lot of character develpment over the series.

This story is about a torturer who was active in New York 9 years ago when Eve was a Detective and Feeney was her Lieutenant. The killer was one of the ones who got away, a case that has nagged at Eve and Feeney over the years and now he's back. The story follows the case as they try to make sure they catch him this time, with a great twist at the end. I don't want to give too much away about the story but if you've read and liked any of the other in Death books you won't want to miss this one.

We get to see more of Feeney and Eve's relationship in this book and as always Rouke and Eve are fantastic (not much in the way of development of their relationship in this book but since they've had lots of ups and downs they deserve to be living the good life as far as their marriage goes.)

I did think that there was a bit of an update in the kind of technical language that was used during the case in this book...made me think a lot of the tv show Criminal Minds with terms such as unsub.

I loved this book and would definately recommend it.

Great read - yet again!!
Love this series, there's nothing like visiting old friends for a few hours of good company.

This time Eve and her team are tracking a killer they 'lost' the first time around. Many still working remember the first time and are determined to get him this time. More dynamics between Eve and her team this time with her personal life being relatively stable - though don't worry we still see lots of Roarke as a consultant on the case.

You can read these books as stand alones, but as noted by another reviewer you would miss a lot of character development particularly over the last 3-4 in the series.
Yes I suppose - as my friend says - they're a bit samey!!! But she just doesn't get it. They are so superbly written, with characters you love, or love to hate and as with all JD Robb/Nora Roberts books within the first couple of pages you feel as if you have known everyone your whole life and would like to meet with them on a regular basis.

More of the same
J D Robb has done a good job of keeping a series going over so many books - I think this is number 27 in the 'In Death' group. Even more surprising, the heroine, Eve Dallas, has stuck with the same man for the entire run; it's unusual for an author to try to portray a steady marriage in a novel as perhaps that's less interesting than the spikes and fireworks of unmarried characters or warring partners. In this particular book, however, the relationship between Eve and Roarke is less significant than the overall plot and, for me, that was an improvement over the more recent books in this series that I have read. Yes, Eve and Roarke still have a few scenes together, they still talk with the rather toe-curling phrases like "you centre me" and all that stuff, but a lot of that can be skim-read if it's a bit too gooey for you (as it is for me; let's face it, how many married people say that sort of thing to each other?)

The murder in this story is one that affects both Eve and Feeney very deeply. Of course in all the other books the murders affect Eve very deeply (for someone who appears quite cold and heartless towards living people she is surprisingly nice to dead ones) but this murder is perhaps more significant because it is the work of a serial killer who they weren't able to catch nine years ago. This killer, dubbed 'The Groom', killed four women in New York and then moved on to Europe, South America and elsewhere and so Eve and Feeney missed their chance. However when Eve's called to the site where a body is dumped and she sees the unique pattern of this killer's handiwork on the body, she knows it's all starting again and she knows that many more women will die.

This time, however, she's the Primary in the case and Feeney is helping her; also this time there seems to be a more personal element to it, with links between the dead woman and Roarke's world. Once again Roarke seems able to completely dump his entire workload (of apparently running half the businesses on the planet) to help Eve; I find this lack of realism annoying in J D Robb's writing. His ability to know all his staff, at least vaguely, is also vastly unrealistic. Anyway, they soon realise that it's not Roarke that The Groom is working towards but Eve. They couldn't catch him last time, he seemed to make no mistakes - can they get him this time?

Coincidence plays quite a part in this story; there are also a number of occasions where Eve makes a leap of logic that pays dividends (as always) and she doesn't seem to put a foot wrong. The story is fast-moving with the events taking place over just a couple of days and it was an interesting read but I did feel rather too much unreality was injected into the story in terms of solving the plot. Interestingly at the end Eve does something illegal (with Roarke's help) which involves her carrying out her own brand of justice; I wondered whether this is a new step in her character, someone who previously was completely moral is now setting herself up as some kind of judge to override someone's else's rights. Perhaps this will be explored further in future books as it's an interesting possibility although didn't add to her appeal to me at all - in fact, I don't find Eve a very appealing character at all. The usual subsidiary characters are in this book - Peabody, McNab, Mavis, Feeney, Trina, Baxter, Dr Mira etc, as well as Summerset (I enjoy the scenes with Summerset the most) but the focus of this story is much more on the murder and the desperate race to solve it than the characters and their lives. I found that an improvement although others might not. It was a good read but there is no novelty in this series any longer and I fear it's outlasted its natural life.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, © Helen Hancox 2007