Thankless in Death

Thankless in Death - J.D. Robb Eve Dallas summarizes it best when she says, “That’s just the whole thing, isn’t it? He just keeps catching the breaks. We know who he is, we know he killed every one of them, when he did it, we even know why. We have a reasonable list of possible targets. We believe we know his general area. And we can’t find the S** of a B****.”

Let’s face it, when a series has reached book #37, the reader pretty much has the format down pat, so the author has to keep the plotline interesting enough, the character relationships moving forward enough, and the writing crisp enough to keep the pages turning in this book and the next, and the next, etc. Ms. Robb manages to do that with this series. Yes, there have been a few bumps and groans along the way but this book redeems those. It’s Eve and Rourke and the heart of Eve’s NYSPD team going after one killer. There are no “end of days” terrorists; there are no mad scientists or Hollywood glitz, simply one (admittedly pretty nasty) bad guy and a string of bodies. Thankless in Death is reminiscent of her early books. She even had me misty eyed a couple of times during this read. Ms. Robb does many things really right with this series; she keeps the characters moving forward, she does not bog down the book with long explanations of what happened in previous books – constant readers (like me) appreciate this and, although the book makes sense for first time readers there are enough references to the past to make constant readers smile and give new readers a reason to go back to the first book.

** Slight spoiler alert **

I’d like to send out a huge thanks to Ms. Robb for not killing the dog!