Naked in Death - JD Robb [May/06]

I finally back-tracked and read the first of the "In Death" romantic suspense novels from J.D. Robb. I don't know what it is with her. I have found many of the later novels in the series, but have yet to see anything between two and seven second-hand. I ended up buying book 2 new because I wanted to see how the story continued. Plan to read that book this weekend.

Anyways, this review is a little easier to write. With Seduction in Death it was later in the series, and I know someone reading this series from the beginning, so didn't want to give anything away.

This novel is described as:

Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In more than ten years on the force, she's seen it all - and knows that her survival depends on her instincts. And she's going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire - and a suspect in Eve's muder investigation. But passion and seduction have rules of their own, and it's up to Eve to take a chance in the arms of a man she knows nothing about - except the addictive hunger of needing his touch.

Having known a bit about this series from reading a later novel first, I found it sort of interesting. A lot of the characters that Dallas meets in this first book as contacts are still present in the later novels. She had been a cop for ten years and she was only now working out a group of people to rely on. I found that a bit unbelievable, but Robb likely wanted to have Dallas as seasoned and then be able to introduce all the characters properly.

Roarke is a recurring character, though. I liked reading about him in the beginning, see where he came from and what he was like. He reminds me of Jean Claude, the head vampire in the Laurell Hamilton novels. Only Roarke is alive, while Jean Claude is the living dead. They just have similar mannerisms about them. Likely because they are both the lead romantic interests and have to be characters that female readers can believe in and fall for.

Anyways, in this book Eve is faced with the murder of the granddaughter of a powerful senator. In this world, as I mentioned in my other Robb review, guns are not used anymore. So when a 1980's gun is found at the scene as the murder weapon, it adds a new dimension to the investigation. Dallas is called in as the chief investigator, following a very disturbing case where a little girl was killed by her father. Dallas has violence in her background, so her last case is still giving her nightmares. Eve is a very determined investigator, even when the senator puts pressure on her and tries to limit her activities to save the family reputation she manages to get the job done. When other women are killed in the same manner and notes left to imply that there will be six victims by the time the killing is through, Dallas begins a race against the clock to insure that the killer does not make it to six.

It is interesting, so far in these novels the killer turns out to be a female hater or a man that believes that women should still be in a subordinate position in society. All of the murdered women in this novel are prostitutes, the man controls them and then he kills them. One of the victims even reveals that he likes to be called "Daddy", a very controlling form of seduction and then murder. The good thing about this murders, though, is that Roarke is believed to be a suspect because he collects rare guns and owns a large percent of the world, including some of the locations where the murders take place. If he hadn't been suspected, he would not have been added for the female readers enjoyment.

I like this series, I like how Dallas is not just your typical crime/suspense character. She has a past, it is not all about solving the cases that present themselves.

4/5