Judgment in Death

J.D. Robb
aka Nora Roberts

11/16/2002

NYPSD is called to a beating death of a bartender after hours in a club called Purgatory. The part-time bartender was a policeman on a second job. The killer seemed to know he was a cop and targeted him for that reason. Eve Dallas is the primary homicide detective called to the scene. She quickly discovers Purgatory is one of the clubs her husband, Roarke, owns.

As Eve investigates, she discovers underlying currents at the dead policeman's precincts. Something is going on there. The chief, another woman, distrusts Eve in this man's world. The victim had been involved in an investigation a few months earlier that almost had one of the city's kingpins convicted. Somehow evidence got skewed or disappeared and he was released. That man, Ricker, had been an associate of Roarke's in years past. Their dealings together had been terminated long before Eve met her husband.

After Eve visits Ricker as part of her investigation, she meets an evil man who still holds a grudge against Roarke. She is certain he is somehow involved in the murder. Proving that fact will be a different issue. When another officer from the same precinct is murdered in a gruesome fashion, she has to find the connections. Police personnel, cops possibly on the take, are being murdered. Someone is acting the role of avenging angel.

This is another of J.D. Robb's (Nora Roberts) dark, futuristic suspense novels in her Eve Dallas series. Again I was pulled right in and had to stay for the ride. The writing is tense, leading the reader deeper into the darkness she paints. Yet the novel is not depressing or overwhelming. Eve is a realistic character with an iron will. Roarke is definitely a dream man. Yet he also is edgy and hard. Only a someone with a personality as forceful as Eve could keep up with him.

The last chapter surprised me. The reader could see what was coming. It was the only way the story could play out in normal fiction formula. But Robb doesn't stick to formula. I was impressed with the final solution of that particular character.

You can find more about this book at with other reviews that tend to agree with mine.

Notice: Sexual situations

Naked in Death
Glory in Death
Immortal in Death
Rapture in Death
Ceremony in Death
Vengeance in Death
Holiday in Death
"Midnight in Death" Silent Night
Conspiracy in Death
Loyalty in Death
Witness in Death
Judgment in Death
Betrayal in Death
Seduction in Death
"Interlude in Death" Out of This World
Reunion in Death
Purity in Death
Portrait in Death
Imitation in Death
Remember When (written w/ Nora Roberts)
Divided in Death
Visions in Death
Survivor in Death
Origin in Death
Memory in Death
Born in Death
Innocent in Death
"Haunted in Death" in Bump in the Night
Creation in Death
Strangers in Death