Pixi Reads

The scene in the West Village studio appears to be classic crime-of-passion: two wineglasses by the bed, music playing, and a young sculptor named Ariel Byrd with the back of her head bashed in. But when Dallas tracks down the wealthy Upper East Side woman who called 911, the details don’t add up. Gwen Huffman is wealthy, elegant, comforted by her handsome fiancé as she sheds tears over the trauma of finding the body―but why did it take an hour to report it? And why is she lying about little things?

As Eve and her team look into Gwen, her past, and the people around her, they find that the lies are about more than murder. As with sculpture, they need to chip away at the layers of deception to find the shape within―and soon they’re getting the FBI involved in a case that involves a sinister, fanatical group and a stunning criminal conspiracy.

This is book 52 in the In Death series by J D Robb aka Nora Roberts. You really must be careful when listening if you are multi-tasking. The case seems to move quickly and if you wish to follow each lead, you’ll need to pay attention. This is full of the quick wit we expect of Dallas and Peabody as they work their way through a complicated case.

I am a large fan of the In Death series. I have all the books as audiobooks, and a few I have also as ebooks. I preordered this with one of my remaining audible credits before I canceled my audible subscription. But this series I have always preordered the next release in one format or another.

Susan Eriksen is the narrator of the entire series. Which is a lot of stories as there are several short stories part of this series as well. I love Susan’s narration of these characters. She really brings them to life with accents, rasps, and other voice sound descriptors, and all. I have a hard time listening to other books she has narrated because I’ve listened to her so much as Dallas, Roarke, Pebody, McNab, and the rest of the NYPSD crew, friends, and family. I always feel though, Susan Eriksen is a superb narrator. So if you hate mystery books, but come across another story in your favorite genre narrated by Susan – and she’s done a lot – you should pick it up. Her narration is so good, even if the story is a 2 of 5 stars, she’ll have you listening to the end just because of her narration alone.

Dallas and Roarke have really grown since first meeting them in book 1, Naked in Death. They work well with each other, and know what the other needs. I also enjoy how protective Dallas is of her friends which have become her family. Taking a moment from talking to one of her friends helping with the investigation to scare off a thief because he was trying to steal from other mothers who had carelessly left purses unattended while watching children play in a park. All because another friend would be bringing her own kids to the park.

Dallas is also protective of the detectives and officers under her. We get to see one of the somewhat new officers to the team quite closely as she plays a large part in this case. The officer knows the individual who finds the body, and is able to help give some background into this individual. Part because of this insight, Dallas brings her in big on this case and gives her a big part in the final takedown.

Eve and Peabody respond to a 911 where the caller is somehow on one side of the city when she calls in a body on the other side of the city. This immediately puts Eve’s suspicions up. She’s more suspicious after checking out the body and then interviewing the caller. The caller lies when giving her statement. Eve and Peabody then pull everything she said apart and are thrown in to the world of a religious cult. As they dig through to get to the bottom of the murder, they find a lot more going on with this cult than meets the eye, and the killer is very likely a member.

If you love witty characters, tell it like it is characters, and the characters that in their own way scream don’t mess with me, you’ll love these characters and this story. Don’t worry about picking this book up out of order. I started the series with book 24, and then skipped around as the different books became available from my library. I did then slowly begin to collect the books so I could read and listen to them in order, with the short stories coming in between as well. I can’t think of any reason you could possibly dislike this or any of the other In Death stories.