Naked in Death - J. D. Robb

After several years of having some of J. D. Robbs books in my TBR pile and an even bigger period of having my friends telling me to read them I finally gave in and this week I read Naked in Death.

I did enjoy it. I liked the mystery plot, well done, suspenseful and surprising and I liked Eve and Roarke. Regarding Eve we become more or less familiar with what’s behind the bad ass attitude, regarding Roarke not so much and if this was just a stand alone I probably would have felt something was missing. Since it’s the first book in a long series I’m guessing more information will become available in later books.

One of the things that stopped me from starting it sooner was because futuristics usually have little appeal to me. The future is a closed door and I find it really difficult to believe in most futuristic scenarios enough to enjoy the story. However this future is not so different from what we have today, they have quite a few more gadjets (I want an Autochef!!!), guns have been banned, there’s off planet travelling and the criminality rate is a lot lower but in the end social behaviour seems more or less the same.

The book is written like a romantic suspense and the hero and heroine meet because Roarke is considered a suspect in one of the cases assigned to Police Liutenant Eve Dallas. The granddaughter of a powerful senator is found murdered and it soon becomes a high profile case due to her family connections and the fact that the murder was committed with an old fashioned revolver (they became collectibles in the future). Soon another murder follows the same pattern and Eve fears a serial killer is on the loose… she tries to advance her investigation while at the same time she is plagued by images of a past case and her own problematic childhood. Roarke is a billionaire with a mysterious past and the power (and money) to make everything happen and who can’t stop thinking about Eve almost from the first moment they meet.

Grade: B+