LJ's Reviews > Salvation in Death

SALVATION IN DEATH (Pol. Proc-Eve Dallas-New York City- Future/2060) - VG
Robb, J. D. (aka Nora Roberts) – 28th in series
Putnam, 2008, US Hardcover – ISBN: 9780399155222

First Sentence: At the mass of the dead, the priest placed the wafer of unleavened bread and the cheap red wine on the linen corporal draping the alter.

Performing communion can be deadly. At least it was to the priest officiating at a funeral service. One sip of from the chalice and he is dead.

One other small problem; as Eve investigates, she discovers he’s not really a priest either. Instead he is someone who appeared five years prior claiming to be, and having had facial surgery, a priest who now can’t be found. Eve has to determine whether the missing priest or the impersonator was the target and who is the killer.

Robb/Roberts has not lost her touch all these books later. She still knows how to grab the reader from the very beginning and keep you going until the very end. She creates great characters and sharp, crisp, often funny dialogue that you can hear in your head and sometimes even want to read out loud.

Eve is one of my favorite female characters. She is tough, smart, somewhat socially awkward and, I’m happy to say, starting to recover from the abuse of her childhood. There are some rather graphic intimate scenes, which can be skimmed over, but also show the less tough, more vulnerable side of Eve. Her husband, Roark, Is involved in this story, but less actively than in the past.

Sense of time and place is very well done. The story is set just far enough in the future to allow for imaginative technology in electronic devices and transportation. Still, it doesn’t ignore that some things continue on in time such as a woman baking bread from scratch as her grandmother once did.

The story is very well plotted. Dealing with the Catholic Church and religion could be uncomfortable or preachy, but Robb doesn’t go down either of those paths. Instead it is used to demonstrate the questions of good and faith sometimes conflicting with the law, but also the desire for some to do what is right.

Lest you mistake a book written by Robb/Roberts as being light, be assured it is not. White there are moments of humor, the story is a solid police procedural with the objective always being to obtain justice for the dead.

For me, this is a great series. As long as Robb continues to write them, I’ll continue to read them.