In J.D. Robb’s ‘Secrets in Death,’ Nearly Everyone Has a Motive to Kill [REVIEW]

A master manipulator. A tenacious cop. One very public murder. Will Lieutenant Eve Dallas be able to catch a killer when there are so many potential suspects who wanted the deceased to meet an untimely end? Find out in J.D. Robb’s Secrets in Death.

A cop with the NYPSD, Eve isn’t the kind of girl that frequents posh French-themed bars. But on the one cold February night that she drops in at Du Vin, her hunky Irish hubby’s high-end nightspot that is popular with the city’s elite, she finds herself doing more than just tossing back an expensive cocktail.

When professional gossip reporter Larinda Mars stumbles out of the ladies’ room, she’s been mortally wounded and collapses in the view of everyone present. Why would anyone want to murder her? Well, she wasn’t exactly the forthcoming sort. Rather, all the dirt she dished on television was just a front for her real passion, blackmailing the rich and famous by threatening them with public humiliation as a means to bleed them dry. Only, as it turns out, that is exactly what someone has done to her, slicing through her brachial artery.

Eve can’t say that she was one of Mars’ faithful followers. In fact, as she digs into the murder, she discovers that she likes the deceased less and less. Still, she is bound by duty and the law to seek justice for the victim, no matter how distasteful she was. Yet as she digs up clues as to who would strike Mars dead, Eve discovers some gossip that she’d rather not know, and even finds that she herself was a potential mark in the blackmailer’s fastidiously kept notes.

Secrets in Death may be Robb’s 45th installment in the In Death series, but her protagonist, Eve Dallas, is just as snarky, determined, and shrewd as she’s ever been. Working closely with her effervescent sidekick, Peabody, as well as her delicious thief-turned-businessman husband, Roarke, they doggedly pursue a killer that is as elusive as Mars’ carefully concealed past. Set in the future, the team uses high-tech resources as well as good old-fashioned police smarts to unearth all the secrets Mars kept, even her own.

The result is a novel that moves along at a fast and fluid pace, one which keeps us guessing even as we meet many of New York’s most famous faces and dish on all their juiciest secrets. It makes for a fun and decadent read, and even sheds new light on some characters readers previously encountered in earlier books in the series. All in all, it is a mystery rife with possibilities, red herrings, and suspects galore. If you’re looking for a quick but entertaining read to lose yourself in this summer, you can’t go wrong with Secrets in Death.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J.D. Robb is the pseudonym for number one New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts. She is the author of over 200 novels, and there are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.

Among these titles is her futuristic suspense In Death series, which features Eve Dallas, a tough cop with a dark past, and her mysterious love interest, Roarke. The first book in the series, Naked In Death, was published in paperback in 1995.

The series quickly garnered attention, praise, and a legion of faithful followers. Beginning with the ninth book in the series, Loyalty In Death, published on Halloween 1999, each book has become a New York Times bestseller. But it wasn’t until the 12th book of the series, Betrayal In Death, that the publisher revealed Robb’s true identity.

Perpetual bestsellers, the In Death books frequently share bestseller lists with other Nora Roberts titles. Robb publishes two books per year and 50 books later, it doesn’t appear they will slow down anytime soon.

To find out more about Robb, visit JDRobb.com, like her on Facebook, or follow her on Pinterest and Instagram.

SECRETS IN DEATH
By J.D. Robb
384 pp. St. Martin’s Press. $27.99

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