Book Review – Naked in Death

Book: Naked in Death (In Death 1) by J.D. Robb
Release Date: July 1st 1995
Genre: Crime/Mystery/Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Goodreads

Synopsis

In a world of danger and deception, she walks the line–between seductive passion and scandalous murder…Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In over ten years on the force, she’s seen it all–and knows her survival depends on her instincts. And she’s going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire–and a suspect in Eve’s murder investigation. But passion and seduction have rules of their own, and it’s up to Eve to take a chance in the arms of a man she knows nothing about–except the addictive hunger of needing his touch.

Review

The In Death series is one that has been mentioned to me a lot over the last few years. But most specifically by a friend, Zadien (whose writing I personally enjoy and I hope one day she will be able to publish her own book) who has mentioned her love for this series more than once, and more so recently by Liesbet from Zwartraafje.  So I finally decided to pick it up. And I don’t regret it. While I have had this series mentioned to me a lot I made sure that I did not know a lot of it before reading it. Of course I knew it was a detective/crime/thriller type of book, but the setting surprised me in a pleasant way. This book is set quite a few years into our future where guns are a collectable. They have lasers, touch screens, and even a project on the moon. I love how the synopsis also doesn’t give this away.

I found the plot interesting. Of course the curse that is me, I already guessed who was going to be the main murderer before the halfway point of that book. He was just the most likely one based on what we got at that point. The other bit also wasn’t too hard to guess in the second half.  It did take away some of my enjoyment of this book, but not a whole lot.

This was because I had taken a liking to Eve Dallas, our main character. I can’t even quite pinpoint what it is about her that drew me in. But I like her. She has a troubled past. I don’t think her past added too much drama to this book. It was something she still struggled with, and while we have a good idea of what happened to her there are still some questions about her past that I find interesting. It was certainly done a lot better than in a book I read previously with something similar.

The romance in this book was mostly good. I certainly rooted for Eve and Roark. However I do feel that Roark sounds a bit too much like the perfect guy at first glance. Next to that sometimes his pushing bordered on him forcing himself into her life which isn’t okay (like him being in her apartment). It just made me a bit uncomfortable seeing as I otherwise like their chemistry. I also liked how in love was used instead of right away the love was blurted at each other (in the Dutch translation in any case). Eve is nowhere near ready for anything like that.

So while the detective part of this book didn’t surprise me in any way, it does give me what I want in a book that I often miss within this genre. Attachments to the characters.