Treachery in Death by J.D. Robb.
Detective Eve Dallas and her partner, Peabody, are following up on a senseless crime-an elderly grocery owner killed by three stoned punks for nothing more than kicks and snacks. This is Peabody's first case as primary detective-good thing she learned from the master.
But Peabody soon stumbles upon a trickier situation. After a hard workout, she's all alone in the locker room when the gym door clatters open; and-while hiding inside a shower stall trying not to make a sound-she overhears two fellow officers, Garnet and Oberman, arguing. It doesn't take long to realize they're both crooked-guilty not just of corruption but of murder. Now Peabody, Eve, and Eve's husband, Roarke, are trying to get the hard evidence they need to bring the dirty cops down-knowing all the while that the two are willing to kill to keep their secret.
The In Death series is one of my all-time favourite series and I love every single book, Treachery in Death is no exception. This is the 33rd full length In Death book, two are released each year along with a novella once a year. Eve and Rourke are one of my all time favourite couples and it is so great to read about them and their deepening relationship. I love how although the series is set slightly in the future the differences are effortless, the character relationships and the cases are the main focus the futuristic elements in the background just make the story that much richer and realistic.
Treachery In Death is very case centric, we still get small glimpses of all the great characters from this series but it's very light on the personal issues. It's really all about the conversation Peabody overhears and the resulting case. The case ends up involving corruption, drugs, murder and dirty cops. It really was a great case, Eve manages to play the bad guys so well and bring all the elements together in the end to bring them down one by one. It's always really good to see how each team member plays a part in catching the bad guys, how they all have their own role to play.
The case and how it came about meant there were some great scenes between Eve and Peabody. It showed how far they have come in their relationship, how its grown and how they really seem to appreciate each other. While I loved the Eve and Peabody interaction I really missed the intimacy between Eve and Rourke that is usually present in these books, sure they had a couple of scenes were it was just them but not as many as usual. They had a little fight at the beginning of the book but it seemed kind of pointless and didn't really go anywhere. But I suppose considering how many books there are in the series and how a lot of the focus is on Eve and Rourke it doesn't really take away from my enjoyment that Treachery In Death is taken up mostly by the case.
I wish there were more series like In Death, series that just focus on one couple rather than focusing on different couples in each book who are loosely connected to each other. But it must be very hard to write a series with one main couple and still keep it interesting and different in every single book. J.D. Robb does this so well - there isn't a book in this series that I haven't loved or re-read. If you haven't read the In Death series I seriously recommend you do so, starting with the first book - Naked In Death.
The next book in the series, which is out in November (so long to wait!), is called New York to Dallas - a special one off title. It sounds like we are going to delve into Eve's past a little bit more which should be all kinds of awesome. But to tide me over until then she also writes books under her real name Nora Roberts. I love these too, she has a stand alone novel coming out in April called Chasing Fire which I can't wait for.
That's all for now.
