August Review Recap

Oh hey, Summer - where'd YOU go?

As promised - a link up of my LITM reviews and my now vaguely insincere pledge to get more read and reviewed really, really (no, really) soon.


Romance: 

The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas (technically a September Review but hey.)

The Collector by Nora Roberts

My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas

Three Weeks With Lady X by Eloisa James


Graphic Novels:

When I Was A Mall Model by Monica Gallagher


Film:

A Band Called Death

Review: Concealed In Death by J.D. Robb

Ok, so the 38th book in the In Death series is out and… guys? Hey, where's everyone going? Wait! Come back! Eve goes to Africa! (I am totally lying. But come back anyway.) I liked this one! Well, mostly. Anyway, Eve catches a cold case. (By book 38 we all know what In Death is about, right? Abused street kid turned murder cop marries Irish abused street kid turned thief and business tycoon, together they hit the sheets while chasing murderers. There. You can skip books 1-37 if you want.) Early on I was concerned that the flaws of the last few books would mar the reading experience of Concealed In Death but Roberts / Robb has moved back into the sweet spot. It's crime time.

Roarke buys a building, and with it he reveals a fifteen year old murder. While his outrage at the crime happening on his turf was tedious (the guy is like dogs and trees, I swear) having Eve work a cold case was an interesting angle. Although lacking the rush against time urgency of an active serial killer, the department still lets her focus on a single case. Mavis, a character we've seen too little of since the earlier books, is brought back for a pivotal plot turn. She is a welcome figure in Eve's world. Mavis loves but does not idolize her. In fact, Eve's almost pathological inability to consider living people is highlighted throughout Concealed In Death as she struggles to make connections with those she values. Eve is a terrible friend, but people stay in her life anyway.

Without giving away the storyline, the cold case touches on aspects of Eve and Roarke's own youth. Eve has moved past her childhood flashbacks, now she dreams of her victims. Conversations with annoyed dead people is a surprisingly satisfactory way to push the plot along, making Eve's intuitive leaps seem more natural. The resolution is no mystery, but In Death has always been more about the journey than the destination. There are some dropped points, astonishingly long memories, and a few characters built up only to disappear at the close. I'm on the fence about everything related to Africa. It's quirky and a little post-colonial. Ultimately I went with it. Roberts continues to provide diverse side characters without making an issue of their ethnicity. Eve's New York is not a single class or color, even if the core characters often are. Concealed In Death is one of the better books in the series and a good entry point for the curious.

*This review originally appeared at Love In The Margins.

Review: Delusion In Death by J.D. Robb

*The world does not need another In Death review. I understand that.

I've been comfort reading after the trauma of breaking up with a few favorite authors. Delusion In Death is number 503 of Nora Robert's popular futuristic crime series and... ok, it's really only number thirty-something. Robb is good about including background detail for new readers without so much detail that long time readers feel bogged down - with one exception. Eve. Put her childhood to rest. Please.

I understand a background as dysfunctional as hers never leaves but at a certain point you've got to just get on with getting on. Each entry to the In Death series occurs in a very short interval of time. Because of the major changes in New York to Dallas Robb is still tying off loose ends with Delusion In Death. Stop already. Where Eve's issues were once compelling and fresh, they've become tiresome. I don't know how new readers would take to Eve without a full background (my guess is just fine) but long time readers have had it. Take away Eve's dysfunction and you still have strong procedurals with interesting side characters. Several successful tv shows have been launched off the same dynamics. People like this stuff. Go with it. Less dead parents, more Morris. Or someone. (But not Dr. Mira.) Oh, and if you tell us who the candy thief is you'd better end the series. (I personally believe Eve eats her own candy in a trance while contemplating how NY became so full of epic crazies that even Batman couldn't keep up. Otherwise she'd keel over in a hypoglycemic event before chapter two.)

Right, so THIS time the epic crazies are New Yorkers. (I live in God's Waiting Room so the idea that a pack of lunching New Yorkers would suddenly turn and eat each other's faces without any visible motivation was completely plausible. Possibly even mundane. If I was Eve I'd tell the owner they should've honored the Early Bird coupons at lunch (because lunch is earlier than dinner) and wrapped the case. Eve never even looked at that angle, which is pretty lucky since diner discounts were not the motive. It doesn't matter much what the motive was. People read In Death to visit with the crime solvers more than criminals. Stuff happened, here's why. What makes In Death a comfort read is the respect. Respect for the reader, respect for the characters, respect from Eve for the dead. Death isn't fawned over. It's a horrible thing, done by horrible people. Even if the victim is a horrible person, it's not right.

Too much romantic suspense is rooted in misogyny. Women chained to things, women skinned alive, women trapped in cages, women running for freedom only to be cut down. Women stacked like cordwood in a fictional charnel house. Here are the women, let's kill a bunch of them and be sad. It's sick. It's not what I read for. Some of my formerly beloved authors are becoming tough reads. In the world of Eve Dallas women are murdered, but men are too. Victims are often saved and when they are not, they are mourned. It's not the begging cries of terror she lingers over but the satisfaction of justice done. The books close with the satisfaction of knowing she's built a solid case that should see a conviction. I never saw The Silence Of The Lambs. I stopped reading horror more than a decade ago. To everyone their fiction, and in mine I want less time in the minds of sadists and sociopaths. I want more time in the minds of people trying to live ethically, even when faced with impossible situations. Delusion In Death was a great chapter in the series but more importantly it didn't make me feel sad when I ended it. I felt entertained, relaxed and ready to read again. There's not enough of that going around lately.

Celebrity In Death by J.D. Robb

 New York To Dallas left me with a lot of optimism for the In Death series. I felt like finally closing the book on Eve's past might open the series up to a new direction, or at least relieve it from the heavy baggage of the first thirty something books. Celebrity In Death isn't the book I was looking for. It is solidly okay. Emphatically okay.   Without a real advance in the character's lives (no, that moment for Peabody doesn't count) the reader's focus is shifted to the crime. I expected to be fine with that. Surprisingly, I just didn't care very much who did it.

I didn't have page turning urgency for this installment of the In Death series. There's a wonderful moment toward the end of the book between Eve, Nadine, and Eve's thoughts in Battery Park. That moment reassured me that I still love Eve Dallas. There is no need for her to hand up her cuffs. But Even should have more moments like that. We shouldn't need a random squirrel to bring her alive. I felt, reading Celebrity In Death as though Eve is as trapped by our expectations as we are by her conventions. A certain amount of backstory is required for a new reader or a reader who hasn't kept up with the series. At this point I am like a kid with new vegetables. I just don't want any backstory. I want everyone to move forward, to stop talking about the past. I want to set down the mental checklist that Roarke will give Eve gifts, that Eve will want to have sex after exercising, that all of these things that have happened before will happen again.

You'd think moving Eve out of her office and into a film stage would shake things up enough. We do get a longer passage from Peabody's POV and for a change Nadine gets a shot at being the hero. Overall, it's a little too familiar. So many great moments failed to pull into a compelling whole. I normally read In Death books over the space of a few hours, but Celebrity In Death took me a few weeks to finish off. I kept forgetting about it. A chapter here, a library late notice there. Talking it over with another reader, we both felt it's time for something radical to happen. Eve has become too accomplished. No cop closes every case. I'd like Roarke and Eve to have something real to deal with, something not so easily resolved in a single volume. Maybe Eve blows a case and the killer walks because of their use of unregistered equipment. Or the evidence fails to come together and she has to make a choice between compromising herself or letting a killer walk free. Something bigger than the normal stakes, something outside of Eve's routine. Or, y'know, not. Robert's doesn't need me to tell her how to get her readers on. I'll be back for the next In Death, but I was glad I didn't purchase this one. As a library read, it was fine.

Review: New York to Dallas by J.D. Robb

Does this really need a review? What are we -  33, 34 books out? (I guess we do because I find myself with things to say about New York To Dallas.) Disclaimer - I like Nora Roberts / J.D. Robb as an actual person. I think she is gracious, hilarious, biting, generous, all the things I look for in a person. I find her NR books hit or miss and her Eve series completely addictive even though I don't like Roarke. (I know. That's fine. Being a party of one never bothers me.) Some on Twitter wondered if the series could continue as it is with so many of the primary mysteries about Eve wrapped up. I say yes.

For me, Eve's backstory has gone to characterization. While I have been interested in aspects of it, I have not felt a compelling need for answers. Having the answers doesn't fundamentally change what I enjoy about the books. Still, taking Eve to Dallas was a smart choice. As the series has grown, so have the lives Eve becomes involved in. Sometimes I feel characters are getting shoehorned into a story they don't belong in, just so they can make an appearance. Putting Eve in Dallas relieved author and reader of that mental checklist. (Although almost the entire cast is at least name checked.) I agree that NYTD would be a reasonable place to tie off the character. Roberts works several years ahead of publication, so I imagine her editors know if she's done with Eve. My money says no. I think she was done with Eve's past, with having that shoe waiting to drop.

There is a character introduced fairly early in NYTD who made me sigh. I knew where we were going before we left the station. While the execution was well done, it's not the path I would have liked to see taken. The world is really not as small as it seems in NYTD. (That's been an issue for me in the past as well, there are only so many overlapping circles I find reasonable.) The core plot of NYTD I quite liked - a criminal Eve put away in her youth returns for a rematch in the prime of her career. He's lost his edge, she's gained experience, but he has the advantage of caring less about the lives in jeopardy. (One thing I really adore about the In Death series would be that it never fetishizes or eroticizes the psychopaths.) Parts of the story reminded me of details from the Jaycee Duggard story, but not in a Lifted From The Headlines way. Overall, it's a solid Eve Dallas tale, and one I think will not disappoint fans of the series.

On the downside, NYTD has a 'cofftea' moment. Eve picks up several new shorthand slang words, including one for analysis.  I was not the first to notice this, it fairly jumps off the page. (If the author wasn't Nora Roberts it would be a meme by now. I have never even considered doing such a thing to my laundry.) My new catchphrase for the year is going to be a quote lifted directly from the pages of NYTD. I just can't say it in front of any kids. Or at the laundromat. Possibly even in public (although we both know I will). Yet these sentences made it through all the eyes that stand between a prepublication certified bestseller and your hands. Goes to show.

Review: Treachery In Death by J.D. Robb

Does Nora Roberts even need reviews?

With a star author like Roberts it can seem pointless to write a review I could devote to a less well known author. As I only review books I think are worth looking at or ones I think are worth avoiding (I'd say I read five or six for every book I feel inclined to discuss) I generally give the major releases a pass.  Then Roberts writes something like Treachery In Death and knocks it out of the park.

Peabody dies.

Ok, ok, I'm kidding. (Spoiler alert!) Peabody does not die. (Maybe. I think. Who knows? You'll have to read it yourself.) One thing Peabody does do is find herself in an extremely dicey situation. So dicey that everything ends up on the table. This is the In Death I would go ahead and drop the cash on now. It's not that much more as an e-book than the eventual paperback will be and it's one of the best in the series. Tightly focused on Eve and her team, free of the angst that's been weighing the series down, this one brings the page turning suspense to the front and puts several major characters in new situations. This, the 40th (Really? Is that even possible?) story to feature Eve Dallas is also a great place to join the series. Everything you need is in this volume, no wasted time, no wasted characters.

Of course, Eve still ends the book a bit battered. That's how she likes it. Someday Eve is going to have to examine why every case needs to be closed with her face (even her husband is starting to notice) but it won't be today. Eve is too busy showing that she will eventually lead the NYPD and the only thing standing in her way is time.