Less than a year ago Gareth and Bria Fitzwilliams, parents of Marcus and his sister Darlene, were killed in an automobile acciden
“Wonderment in Death”
Less than a year ago Gareth and Bria Fitzwilliams, parents of Marcus and his sister Darlene, were killed in an automobile accident. Darlene is having problems with her grieving process, and Marcus and Darlene’s fiancé Henry have urged her to find professional help. Neither knows that the heiress has been seeing Doctor Bright for five months. Over tea and crumpets the good doctor helps her communicate with her late parents, for a fee – nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars a visit, plus a couple of tokens like small, valuable heirlooms. These tokens allow a visit with the deceased. After her last visit a buoyant Darlene pays her brother Marcus a visit and gives him a beautiful red rose. He seems reluctant to take it so she keeps pushing it toward him. Then she runs through the glass door to the terrace and takes a flying leap from the fifty-second floor of the building.
NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas pulls rank to be primary on this case at the request of her friend, Dr. Louise Dimatto, who has been close to the family all of her life. Marcus was stabbed three times in his chest and bled out before his friend Henry came to see him. Louise is able to supply enough information to help Eve, and it doesn’t take this crackerjack detective to find the mad hatter that is catering to grief stricken clientele.
J. D. Robb is a shrewd narrator with the tendency for the unexpected and a gift for portraying eccentric characters and unusual situations. DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE is carefully crafted and highly entertaining.
“Alice and the Earl in Wonderland” by Mary Blaney. Amy and Simon use Poppy’s Coin to travel back in time to 1805 London and have a very good time.
iLove by Elaine Fox is a contemporary romance
Fallen by R. C. Ryan - Is it amnesia that brings on a magic and mystic fairytale romance?
A True Heart by Mary Kay McComas – Elise is afraid to let love back into her life; could the man behind the mask be the one she can trust?
Five fantastic writers bring you their annual stories. This year’s tales all have a semblance, or tie in to Lewis Carroll.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas spends the last few days of the year 2060 hunting a killer that is a big fan of h
OBSESSION IN DEATH
J. D. Robb
Putnam February 2015
Lieutenant Eve Dallas spends the last few days of the year 2060 hunting a killer that is a big fan of hers. After executing Leanore Bastwick, a high powered criminal attorney, and cutting out the woman’s tongue, the assassin leaves a message for Eve on Bastwick’s bedroom wall basically saying the woman represented the slime that Eve works so hard to get off the streets. The message also stated that the victim did not show Eve any respect. The killer gained entrance into this upscale building by posing as a delivery person; otherwise, this case has not one shred of evidence, giving Eve the feeling that her new “true and loyal friend” just might be in law enforcement.
A second massacre is discovered the next morning and as far from the social spectrum of Bastwick as it can be. The object of this slaying is a smelly and filthy drug dealer/junkie named Ledo who lives in an underground squalid flop. When Eve arrested Ledo nearly two years ago there was an altercation with a pool cue that got broken, and Ledo accidently hit Eve in the face grabbing for it. The recently deceased Ledo has been stabbed with a broken cue stick, his tongue cut out, and there was another message for Eve. This time there is a witness; a young woman named Misty that lives across the hall saw an exterminator on the premises; all bundled up with hood and mask making it hard to say if it was male or female.
This case turns traumatic for Eve as her new friend is now fixating on people close to Eve out of spite and jealousy as Eve has not shared with the public the way she is being helped. Eve is now aware of how many people she has let into her once isolated and very private life, and she cares for them all. Our heroine is amazed by how much esteem her co-workers and the general public have for her and the limits they will go to help her, and protect her.
J. D. Robb does not fail to regale her stalwart fans and recent devotees with OBSESSION IN DEATH, a spellbinding, psychological crime story. The perpetrator has been hiding in plain site; a very complex and troubled person. The case is wrapped up on New Year’s Eve 2060, and Eve and Roarke let all their friends celebrate in Times Square while they go home to bring in the New Year with a much warmer, quieter and private observance.
Tis the Season to be jolly and Eve Dallas is shopping and solving crime, as usual. What is different is she is actually enjoying the shopping! Her latest murder victim is a macho, award winning personal trainer that uses and abuses his female clientele. Evidently one of them couldn’t take it anymore and left him propped up in his bed with a knife stuck in his heart and a sign pinned to his chest: “Santa Says You’ve Been Bad!!! Ho. Ho. Ho!” Trey Ziegler was a personal trainer and a certified sleaze-ball man-ho. He was neither liked nor respected by his peers.
Investigation into Trey’s life indicates he provided private and personal services at many female clients’ homes for which he was paid very well in cash and gifts. Trey was also planning on opening his own salon.
Dallas and her husband, Roarke, are hosting an annual A+ List Christmas Party for over two hundred of their friends and extended family. Dallas and Summerset work on the party together, and for once she enjoys working with her antagonist. Matter of fact, Eve Dallas has a very good time mingling with her guests.
As usual J. D. Robb is spot on in setting, plot points, and narrative. This fantastic offering is not only a top-notch mystery; it is a delightful page-turner with clever banter and situations between these real people who visit us twice a year. FESTIVE IN DEATH is truly a guilty pleasure read, and one of Ms. Robb’s best yet.
Concealed in Death By J. D. Robb Putnam February 2014
Roarke has purchased a rundown old building with good bones, and has no idea what he will do with it. He wants to make the first demolition hit for good luck with a sledge hammer. The empty wall space shows two bodies stacked on top of the other and wrapped in thick plastic. It’s time to call in his wife, NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas. By the end of the day, twelve bodies have been discovered behind the walls and all of them are young girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen. These bodies are given over to Dr. Garnet DeWinter, the department’s new forensic anthropologist. There is an immediate clash of personalities between Eve and the good doctor. This building was called The Sanctuary at one time and was a haven for homeless and troubled teenagers and supervised by Philadelphia and Nashville Jones, a brother and sister. Fifteen years ago the Jones’ siblings vacated this building and moved into a magnificent structure donated by Tiffany Brigham Bittmore, a philanthropist, and called the Higher Power Cleansing Center for Youths; The Sanctuary has remained empty since that time.
The first body is identified as Linh Carol Penbroke, thirteen, and the daughter of well-to-do physicians. A missing child report had been filed on September twelfth, 2045. She wasn’t a run away or a throw away. Shelby Ann Stubacker, also thirteen, is the second girl identified. Multiple untended broken bones indicate Shelby was abused and the child’s rap sheet began when she was nine. Shelby traded sex for whatever she needed – such a sad, sad, life. One by one all of the bodies are identified, and the cause of death of all twelve is a shocker.
Concealed In Death is a real puzzler, and one of the more complex cases Eve, Peabody and the crew have had in a long time. As each young victim is identified, emotions are brought into play, as well as anger at the system that allows children to just fall through the cracks. J. D. Robb puts all the puzzle pieces together and ties up all the loose threads in this captivating and emotional story. Chalk up another deserved, and fascinating, best-selling book.
NEW YORK TO DALLAS J. D. ROBB Putnam October 2011 Pedophile and murderer Isaac McQueen has escaped from Rikers where he was serving a life sentence. He haNEW YORK TO DALLAS J. D. ROBB Putnam October 2011 Pedophile and murderer Isaac McQueen has escaped from Rikers where he was serving a life sentence. He has two items on his immediate agenda – find a sweet young thing to torture and rape, and execute NY Detective Lt. Eve Dallas. Isaac returns to his old apartment to find a young couple living there. He brutalizes both of them, but sends the man to take a message to Lt. Dallas, promising he won’t kill the girlfriend if the message is delivered within an hour. The message is “There’s the bell for round two.” Eve knows without a doubt that Isaac is loose and no young girl will be safe. Isaac is good looking, charming, and has no trouble luring his prey. He usually works with an older woman who has scouted out the type of female he likes, and they work as a team in the abduction. When Dallas arrested him twelve years ago she rescued twenty-six young girls, including twins that were his most recent acquisitions. He had gotten his pleasure of raping and slicing open one of their faces and branding her breast with a number set inside a valentine heart. The other one, Melinda Jones, was saved. Isaac wants her back to finish what he started and his grifter has located a young one for him. Ah, he’s so clever and this time he won’t get caught. With all the resources and good people working for her, Isaac’s hidey-hole is found easily, but he realizes that the police are awaiting his return, and though it is a setback for him, he starts over by stealing a car, credit cards, etc. He can’t stay in New York, and devises a plan to get Dallas on neutral territory. Back to her roots in Dallas, Texas. NEW YORK TO DALLAS is a big emotional wallop to the reader as well as Eve. Roarke is the only back up she takes to Texas with her, leaving her squad to do all the leg and grunt work in New York and to find out as much as they can about how Isaac was allowed to escape, who helps him, and who are the women he uses as locaters. Eve revisits, physically and mentally, the apartment where she killed her father and then wandered the streets for days. The anguish she suffers is as debilitating as acute pain. The relationships she and Roarke share, as well as the nightmares of their childhoods, are dark, phenomenal and gripping. They truly are soul mates in every sense of the word. This is a very good book and hopefully the events that occur will be the catalyst that chases Eve’s demons away.