Salvation in Death

i own every "eve dallas" book ever published, and when i get my hands on a new one, everything stops and i start reading till im done with it....but this latest one, i got 2 weeks ago and i just cant get into it, its about 1/4 read...i'll finish it to be sure, but its not what i expected, to many characters or something...cant wait for the next one!

This was a great addition to this series. It just keeps getting better with every book. I can't wait for the next one.

Gone is the hard, precise scalpel like honed edge of Eve's character. Nora Roberts/J.D.Robb has reduced Eve to a hologram of the simpering female characters with which she populates her "romance" novels. The author has Eve becoming "gooey" over Roarke having white petunias planted in the yard. She has reduced Eve and Roarke into white trash behavior having sex in their car and yammering about b.j.s and other vulgar, crude and low class sex talk. Long gone is the amusing and snarky repartee between Eve and Peabody. Delia has devolved into a sullen, sulking glutton with her sole focus upon cramming food into her fat face and having sex with Mc Nab.

I was once such a fan of this series, but the author has wrecked the futuristic vibe with the same, maddening repetitiveness with which she wrecked her romance novels. NO ONE talks in such truncated and circular dialog unless they have a malfunction of their nervous system and speech centers in the brain. Robb has her characters repeat, repeat, repeat the same words multiple times in sentences and paragraphs until you want to throw the book at the wall. One can hope that by the year 2061, people would have graduated to a more sophisticated and elegant style of language and manner of speaking. The author has taken away the brash, steely toughness which WAS the essence of Eve and holds her up to mockery of what she has been in the prior books of this series. Maybe that is the answer: The real Eve is now a has been. Robb harps on the same old issue of Eve's childhood rape by and murder of her father in each and EVERY story. This time it was just too much of the same cut and paste junk. I found myself skipping pages until it was done.

Eve's caffeine addiction and constant sucking up coffee while looking haggard or fighting over eating various foods is old and tired as well. Worse, Feeney, Mira, even the tiresome Mavis are rendered flat and boring. The story line could be interesting if it hadn't gotten lost in blah, boredom and the mishmash of too many one dimensional characters. The copycat murder of a fundamentalist christian preacher lost in lust and alcoholism along with the murder of a hispanic priest during mass made it difficult to sustain even the slightest bit of interest. Murder and Mayhem in Spanish Harlem? Yawn. Like other reviewers have noted, Salvation in Death was "phoned in". Too often drek like this is what happens when authors take their audience for granted. In this case, Roberts/Robb could take a page from the peerless Mave Binchey and take a sabbatical from writing before she generates more of the same.

As in all of JD Robb novels, there is suspence, humor & romance. Always as excellent read. I particularly liked the development & resolution of the second murder. I look forward to her next novel before I finish each current one as her character development is fabulous. Eve, Roarke, Peabody, McNabb, Somerset, Feeney, Galahad-excellent.

I've read all the "In Death" series and loved all but this one. I found this book extremely hard to get through due to the many characters. I found myself re-reading parts to remember who was who. Ther was very little in the book about our other favorite personalities whom we've grown to expect in the books. Perhaps it's time for Eve and Roarke to start their family and for Eve to get the well deserved and earned promotion. She could also work for Roarke on the side as a security consultant. After all, he's worked enough as a civilian consultant for the police force. Think of Somerset as a care giver for the Roarke children!

Tmckinsey