Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Review - - Passions in Death

Passions in Death
by J.D. Robb
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: September 3, 2024
Reviewed by Nancy 
 



On a hot August night, Lt. Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, speed through the streets of Manhattan to the Down and Dirty club, where a joyful, boisterous pre-wedding girls’ night out has turned into a murder scene. One of the brides lies in a pool of blood, garroted in a private room where she was preparing a surprise for her fiancée—two scrimped and saved-for tickets to Hawaii.

Despite the dozens of people present, useful witnesses are hard to come by. It all brings back some bad memories for Eve who once suffered an assault in the very same room—but she’d been able to fight back and survive. She’d gotten justice. And now she needs to provide some for poor young Erin.
Eve knows that the level of violence and the apparent premeditation involved suggest a volatile mix of hidden, heated passion and ice-cold calculation. This is a crime that can be countered only by hard detective work and relentless dedication—and Eve will not stop until she finds the killer who destroyed this couple’s dreams before the honeymoon even began…

 

Nancy’s Thoughts: 

Passions in Death delivers the tightly plotted murder mystery and engaging characters readers have come to expect from J.D. Robb’s series. This story is different, though, in that it also examines the different facets of friendship, healthy and not so. 

When Eve enters the crime scene, she finds Erin Albright’s body and a satchel containing items she later learns were part of an intended surprise for the other bride, Shauna Hunnicutt. Erin had intended to fulfill her fiancée’s longtime dream of a trip to Hawaii by giving it to her as a honeymoon. 

Since Erin couldn’t bring the satchel in without ruining her surprise, someone she trusted must’ve done so. Everyone in Erin’s friend group and Shauna’s denies having known about it. Someone must be lying. But who? And why? 

As Eve, Roarke, and the detectives of the NYPSD dig into the case, they find that everything among these groups of friends was not as it seemed. There were undercurrents of various feelings other than friendship, some of them not healthy. Whether the unhealthy ones were strong enough to spur a murder, though, Eve and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, can’t easily determine. The quest to do so carries the reader through the book. 

In addition to Roarke and Peabody, the supporting cast includes, among others, Eve’s friend Mavis and her family, Leonardo and Bella, and Electronics division Det. Ian McNab. The last several books have had a plot thread running through them about Peabody and McNab remodeling an old house with Mavis and Leonardo. Peabody and McNab will live in one side, also providing security, while Mavis and her family, including an expected baby, will have the other side. The remodeling project now is nearly done. This thread provides a lighter, happier note that contrasts with both the grim investigation and the troubling undercurrents among Erin and Shauna’s friends. 

Eve and Peabody narrow their suspect list before the end of the book. My only quibble with the story is that I (who never figure out whodunnit) was pretty sure which one was the killer for reasons I think will also point them out for regular readers of the series. 

Despite my quibble, the story is engrossing, and the characters deliver their usual strong, steady performances. One of the things I like about this series is that Eve, Peabody, Roarke, and company not only pursue justice with iron resolution but also have empathy toward the victim and toward those wounded by the victim’s loss. 

Highly recommended. 

4.5 stars 

~Nancy

 

 

1 comment:

  1. I like this author's alter ego and really wish I had started her J. D. Robb series way back when it first came out. I was working at the library and ordering each book as it came out. The books were always reserved well in advance and by the time I could get them, I was busy with other books. I guess I'll have to find some way to start the series and catch up.

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