Connections in Death

November 1, 2018
Lt. Eve Dallas' 48th futuristic investigation takes her from a stratospherically upscale housewarming for her friend Nadine Furst, the journalist/screenwriter who won an Oscar for fictionalizing Eve's own adventures, to the mean--really mean--streets of New York.The good news for Rochelle Pickering, the child psychologist who's one of many guests at the party, is that Eve's wealthy husband, Roarke, who owns the building in which Nadine makes her splashy new home, has decided to hire her as head therapist at An Didean, the youth facility he's funding and building. The bad news is that shortly after Rochelle shares her joy with her brother, Lyle, an ex-con and ex-gangbanger who's turned his life around, he dies of a drug overdose in the apartment she's opened to him. Since Lyle was in good physical shape with no indication that he'd recently been using, all signs point to murder clumsily disguised as an accident--presumably by Dinnie Duff, the former girlfriend who visited Lyle minutes before he died and let three male friends into the apartment. Unlike Lyle, Dinnie's maintained her ties to the Bangers gang, and it's among their membership that Eve (Leverage in Death, 2018, etc.) and her partner, Detective Peabody, go looking for suspects. They find a bumper crop: top Banger Marcus Jones Jr., aka Slice; his business partner, disbarred attorney Samuel Cohen; Cohen's live-in, Bump & Bang dancer Eldena Vinn; Dinnie's current lover, Kenneth "Bolt" Jorgenson; and virtually everyone else they talk to. And eventually they find Dinnie, who's been raped and murdered in a much more emphatic way than Lyle. What they don't find is a story any more coherent than a series of interrogations in which small fry flip on bigger fry, punctuated by the occasional shoot'em-up.On the plus side, every one of those interrogations offers another outlet for the heroine's unique combination of street smarts, moral outrage, and curled-lip scorn.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 15, 2018

Robb's (Leverage In Death) futuristic police procedural universe continues to expand, exploring the connections among its large cast of characters. Anchored by Lt. Eve Dallas of the New York Police and Security Department and billionaire husband Roarke, supporting characters add much-needed depth and humor to the gritty murders that dominate these novels. Robb fleshes out Down and Dirty club owner, Crack, who is dating Dr. Rochelle Pickering, Roarke's newest employee. When Rochelle's brother is found dead of an apparent overdose in her apartment, Eve begins an investigation that leads to the brutal underground of sex clubs, drug dealers, and two of the nastiest rival gangs in 2061 New York. Double crosses and all-around bad behavior abounds as Eve pulls together a large, cross-departmental team to discover why a rehabilitated former gang member's death is the catalyst for a full-out gang war. VERDICT Fast-paced and plot-driven, this 48th book in the series still has plenty of character growth, which should appeal to readers who prefer their procedurals with a touch of romance.--Charli Osborne, Southfield P.L., MI

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2018
NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows that most murderers are not geniuses, but whoever killed Lyle Pickering really was an idiot. Although the killer may have tried to make it look like Lyle died of a self-inflicted overdose, all the clues left behind at the crime scene point to murder. Put this together with the fact that Lyle had been clean and sober for two years, and that his sister, Dr. Rochelle Pickering, believes he had turned his life around completely, and Eve has more than enough ammunition to open a new case. Robb, otherwise known as the best-selling romance star Nora Roberts, takes her Teflon-tough heroine into the dark and dangerous world of New York City gangs in the forty-eighth nail-biting addition to the wildly popular Eve Dallas series. Dallas fans will be eager for a new Robb title, and this gritty, intense, and sexy procedural will have them reading way past their normal bedtimes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)