What a fantastic addition to the series!
Bonded in Death,
the sixtieth book in J. D. Robb’s well-written futuristic police procedural set in New York City, is one of the best in the series. This series features homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas, her husband, Roarke, and her partner, Detective Delia Peabody, along with an assortment of regular secondary characters. This time we get more of Summerset’s background and history along with a fascinating murder. Summerset is the man who became a father to Roarke when he was a young boy on the Dublin streets.
Giovanni Rossi arrives in New York, but he was a part of a small, secret organization consisting of twelve individuals during the 2020’s. He arrives in response to an old colleague and dies soon after being picked up at the airport. Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the case frustrating. Rossi had just arrived from Rome. His widow doesn’t know why he left, and the police still don’t know what killed him or why. When Summerset, learns of the crime, he’s shocked and reveals how he knows the victim.
Time spent with Dallas, Roarke, Peabody, and their colleagues and friends is always entertaining. Eve is smart, tenacious, determined, focused, brave, and believes in what she does. However, her way doesn’t usually include the social niceties. It’s compelling to see how Eve’s mind works as she gets a better picture of the killer. As always, the interactions between Dallas and Roarke as well as with their friends and her homicide team are enjoyable and bring different facets of her personality to light. While this book didn’t include a lot of interactions with their friends, it included several people important to Summerset.
Murder, suspense, and drama immediately pull readers into the storyline. The author continues to use prose to elicit a strong emotional response from readers. While this one included some flashback scenes, Robb made the transitions smooth and the content riveting. While the killer is known early in the book, the story is about the investigation and search for him or her as well as the relationships people have formed.
Skilled in using humor to bring out character personalities as well as to offset some of the more serious aspects of the story, I didn’t want to put the book down. Strong characters, excellent pacing, and delightful relationships are a constant in this series. Woven through the novel are threads of friendship, standing for victims, found family, betrayal, greed, love, connections, bonds, hate, jealousy, justice, trust, anger, and much more.
Robb is an excellent storyteller who combines clever plots, intense scenes, lots of solid police investigation, and engaging characters with depth. The narrative has the right balance of mystery, police investigation, romance, and creative twists.
Overall, this novel was an emotional and twisty tale with great characterization that kept me engaged throughout the story. If you enjoy intriguing near-future police procedurals with a strong female lead, then I recommend this series. I can’t wait to read the next book.
St. Martin’s Press and J.D. Robb provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for February 04, 2025.
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My 4.84 rounded to 5 stars review will be posted in early January 2025.