Review: Thankless In Death by J.D. Robb

While many have given up on the In Death series I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. They’re a comfort read – the book equivalent of flipping to a favorite syndicated show and hoping for an episode you haven’t seen. I read In Death books to spend time in Eve’s world and check in with favorite characters. I’ve always appreciated how the series keeps it focus on the dead and the detectives, rarely lingering over the crimes themselves. Thankless In Death breaks this unspoken promise.

The killer here is a far more familiar figure than Eve has been dealing with lately. No clone plots, no multi generational vendetta. Eve’s chasing an angry Nice Guy while he murders everyone who failed to appreciate him. We spend far too much time in Nice Guy’s head. When Eve stands and pictures the crime scene, we already know what happened. There’s no revelation in her thoughts, only reruns for the reader. There’s no mystery, the killer and his motivation were shown up front. I spent far more time with the murderer than I wanted to. His contemplation of innovative torture techniques was the opposite of comfort reading.

Eve was unsatisfying as well. Thankless In Death finds Eve stagnant. She has cast aside career ambition, feeling that she is best suited for the rank and role she plays. This limits her character. An Eve who looks at the murder, bangs her husband, reflects on murdering her dad and then locks the bad guy up is a disposable Eve. Expanding Eve’s world, increasing her personal responsibilities, these are the elements that have sustained In Death through a shocking number of installments. Eve has become a media figure in her own right, Rourke’s Cop. She’s grown complacent with that status. She has universal and abundant praise from those around her. No longer fighting for worth, Eve has earned it through her actions and connections. What’s left for Eve (and the reader) to explore? With a new In Deathright around the corner I’ll give the series another installment. If Eve isn’t interested in moving on, I might have to do it for both of us.

*This review originally appeared at Love In the Margins.

Review: Fifth Grave Past The Light by Darynda Jones

I'm as surprised as y'all that I read book five of this series. Truly. I'm even more surprised I was given an ARC.

Fifth Grave repairs a lot of what was going wrong with the Charley Davidson series before magnifying new flaws. I find Jones so frustrating as an author. There is a great series here, with a strong point of view and a compelling frame, but it doesn't quite hit the page. She constantly uses one pound of story for a five pound bag. The Charley Davidson series is part Charlaine Harris, part Jenny Lawson, part Janet Evonavich. This should be an adorable cracktastic thrill ride, not a misaligned wooden coaster.

When we meet Charley this time her PTSD has died down and so have the abuse dynamics of her relationship with Reyes. He still tries to kill those close to her but Charley finds it endearing instead of traumatic. He's working on his communication skills while still keeping Charley in the dark as often as possible. (No, that wasn't a play on words.) His position of manipulation is absolute. He knows the answers to all of Charley's questions but refuses to tell them. He insists she make choices without being fully informed of the outcomes. Jones moves Reyes out of the Bad Boy mold and into the Benevolent Billionaire a little more in this chapter. Reyes is still the guy all the girls want, who only wants Charley. He is a trophy mate with a taste for terror.

Also disturbing me is an uptick in ghost children. Charley is attracting dead children who don't want to leave. Her assistant, Angel, has shadowed his mother for longer than he was alive. Her (special needs?) assistant Rocket lives in an abandoned building with his traumatized sister Blue and the somewhat disturbed sister of a living cop. In book four a formerly possessed living deaf boy was added and in this volume we meet a murdered elementary school girl. I find a child ghost far less charming than Charley does. There is a horror in early death. There is a horror in children trying to comfort parents who cannot see or respond to them. It it no mystery that most of Charley's young ghosts are disturbed, they are trapped in a cycle of perpetual neglect. It is an interesting choice, this army of dead children, but it's not necessarily a good one.

The weight of the mythology this series wants to hold is pushing the Ghosts Du Jour to the side. With deliberate ADD pacing, action pinballs from terrorized female ghosts to a new therapist, to her sister's side story, to Reyes sister's side story, to Garrett, and so on. At this point Jones needs to drop the mythology or the crime of the day and get serious about one of them. (She also might want to ease up some on the whimsical humor. It's reading like a lack of ideas instead of a style choice.)  I've got that 50 volume series feeling happening and there isn't enough at stake to hang in that long. Add in Surprise Bondage plus Pointless Heroine Assault and you've got why I wasn't going to buy Fifth Grave. I'd probably read Sixth Grave if it was free, but I can't promise I'd finish it.

Review: Haven by Kay Hooper

Let's face it, the Bishop / SCU series is played out. I think Hooper knows it too, which explains why Haven reads like a reboot. From the cover art to the content, the series is positioned as light horror / suspense instead of light paranormal romantic suspense. I kind of enjoyed Haven, it was an easy read. There was some third wall stuff going on when one character remarks that they seem to spend a surprising amount of time in small towns with sordid serial killer secrets at their heart. (As a city girl I've never found small towns anything but forebodingly creepy but I too must acknowledge the concept is getting tiresome.)

There's something unfinished about Haven, a feeling that it's still in progress. When you get to the final pages Hooper offers a cast of characters listing abilities and earlier book appearances. Except the previous book appearances are listed for only one character. This is the sort of meticulous (non) attention to detail that sends Haven skidding off the rails for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the TSTL characters are, um, TSTL and therefore die. I appreciate Hooper trying to set up something fresh with her popular paranormal FBI crew but it feels a little Friends of Superdog to me. I don't want to cut back and forth between characters I've liked to establish that these characters belong with them. If the romantic element is removed then I want to read about core characters solving crimes. Develop their lives, move them forward. Don't relegate them to side roles where they act concerned and offer explanatory speeches to new readers. (This is what derailed Iris Johansen's Eve Duncan series long before the atrocity of Bonnie.)

Haven has twin sisters who aren't twins. They're just identical siblings. One is the light, one is the dark, both are low level psychics with something very bad in their past. I found the hidden event completely plausible but everything stemming from it irritatingly absurd. (Without spoiling the book, we will just say my buy in on that aspect was 0%.) There's a bad guy preying on the town and with only three main male characters figuring out who it is isn't exactly a challenge. Your choices are Red Herring or Absurdly Easy To Spot. What isn't clear is why AETS is the freak he is. Either Hooper is planning on breaking out her undying evil force plot from an earlier book (I dearly hope not) or she forgot that most suspense books end up giving the killer's motivations. Generally, it goes beyond I Hate Chicks. Sure, not always. Most of the time, though.

So, there's no romance. There's no suspense. There is light horror and a body count, plus a large dose of victimized girls in abject terror. The psychics are pretty useless, except when they need a sudden burst moving the plot along. The complacency of AETS is inexplicable, as is his agitation when the missing sister returns home. There's no payoff in the long lost family angle either. Emma greets Jesse back like she went out for milk but had to go to the store across town. There's no heat in Haven, not of anger or of love. It's a smooth ride to the finish, enjoyable and easily forgotten. As a library read, a waiting room book or a beach burner it's fine. Haven is truly average. Which makes me sad. I like Kay Hooper. I like her way with paranormals. I wish she'd either get over this series or rethink the light horror focus. I am bone tired of reading about mutilated women, I need something else to hang my hat on if we're going to insist on writing about them.