Fantasy in Death

I love this series. It is hard to believe that this is book #30. This was an excellent addition to the series. Eve has to solve a locked room mystery where game designer Bart Minnock is found in his locked holo room with his head cut off. Roarke is involved because he knew Minnock and acted as a

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mentor to him and his partners when they were setting up their business. The book also explores friendship and love and we see both Eve and Roarke growing in each book. The first book was published in 1995 but internal chronology has only about two years passing. It is great to catch up with other secondary characters too. I was glad when Trina put in an appearance. She might be the only person tough, homocide detective Eve actually fears as she comes at her with cosmetics and scissors to trim her hair. I love the humor and the banter in the series.

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Actually, I was a little disappointed in this outing. Probably because I figured it out so quickly. I figured out who the bad guy was and how he/she did it fairly early on in the book. I've never been able to do that with one of her books before.

I'm constantly amazed that even after 25+ books, Nora Roberts (aka JD Robb) still manages to come up with fresh story lines for these mysteries! In this installment, we have her take on the "locked room" mystery. The victim is killed inside a highly secured room playing a game - so how did the

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killer get in and out unseen?

The series is set in the future, but that is usually low key in terms of the stories themselves. Here, the future setting becomes more prominent as technology is key to the crime. The victim is a game designer, but in the future that means holorooms (just like the holodeck in Star Trek!) and the game he died while playing is critical to Eve's investigation. The last couple of books minimized the roles of the supporting characters a lot. That trend is reversed here. Since technology is front and center, Roarke takes an even bigger role in the action than in previous mysteries and we get more of McNab and Feeney as well. McNab and Peabody even go undercover at a gaming convention! There is a lot of humor, but also some unexpected, but necessary, tension between Eve and Roarke. Their fairy tale marriage could easily become boring, but Robb keeps it real by having them argue, get angry and say hurtful things - then have hot make-up sex. The romance is still a strong factor in the series, but has never overshadowed the mysteries.

Overall, another satisfying read and strong entry to the series. I am grateful Nora is so prolific - even twice a year isn't enough for me. Can't wait for the next book!

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This entry into the '...in Death' series begins with a scene with the victim rather than with Eve getting a call from Dispatch. A worthy entry but I did get the feeling of something different that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's just that after so many years the author and the character

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have changed enough that there's a slightly different feel to the story. However many of the continuing characters make at least a brief appearance and we have a locked room mystery that puzzles our detective for some time. Fans should read this although the solution may be a bit fantastic for some.

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Although I alwasy enjoy JD Robb books - I enjoyed this one more than her recent books. Not sure exactly why - I think it was the whole hologram part -but I had a hard time putting the book down.

When one of the industry's top gamers turns up dead, murdered in gruesome fashion while alone in his one private holodeck, Eve catches the case. No suspects and no holes in the vic's security make finding out who-dun-it a challenge, even for a crack detective and her team.

A bit predictable, but

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still an enjoyable read - at this point, she's gonna solve the case, so read it for the dialogue, the character interaction, and the escape. It's fun if you're in the mood for something light.

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J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas mysteries are one of my guilty pleasures, and this is one of her best, in my opinion. The mystery is clever, and the relationship between Dallas and Rourke is more low-key, avoiding the melodrama that sometimes slows these novels down. The lower "heat" rating of this book may

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be a consequence, but I didn't miss the decrease in steamy scenes. Robb keeps things moving along nicely, but I was able to get a good night's sleep in the middle of the book. Good for my health, so I'm happy, but I have to admit I had figured this one out as soon as the death occurred, which cut down on the suspense. I don't know if everyone will know what happened so quickly, but for once we really have much better information to work with than the police and Rourke.

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Bart Minnock creates grandiose and realistic computer holo games and one of these games turns on him in reality and lops off his head. Dallas has to investigate the remaining three partners in U-Play to see who wanted to remove Bart as de-facto president. Also - Nadine's book on the Icove case

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comes out and is a big success.

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Fantasy in Death is the latest in J. D. Robb's series of science fiction police procedurals. They're usually pretty decent light reads, but this one was rather disappointing. She uses one of the more unrealistic parts of her world's technology, the holodeck, and breaks one of the cardinal rules of

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science fiction mysteries by having the killer use a weapon impossible by the upfront rules of the universe. Since the readers get to see part of the murder at the start of the book, watching Eve Dallas flounder around for half the book trying to figure out how-done-it, running around with theories that contradict what the reader knows, is just no fun. At least the who-done-it isn't bad.

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Another good murder mystery that Lt Eve Dallas and her team have to solve. This time though I had figured out the method by which the murder victim was killed before I was a third through the book, but what I couldn't figure out was who did it and why.

Oh, please! I think a holo program wrote this one.

A locked room mystery. Bart Minnock is one of four owners of a very successful computer gaming company. He brings home a new game to try out and winds up dead, in his locked holo-room. Detective Eve Dallas has to come up with a how, why and who. The how is relatively obvious from the out,

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particularly to the reader but the who kept me guessing until the book was nearly finished and the author did surprise me by setting up one of the other four for obviousness as the murderer and then proving beyond most doubt (look, I am a very suspicious person) that it wasn't them.

These stories aren't just about the mystery, they're about the recurring characters. Nadine's book about Icove is out and the launch party is part of the story. Rourke and Dallas are still dealing with some issues and there isn't as much sex as you regularly get in the series.

I enjoyed this, not as much as some of the others in the series but it still kept me reading and kept me wondering.

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I hadn't read any of this series before and I found it hard going and slow with little progression in the first half of the book and I almost gave up on it. The sci-fi elements, whilst opening up the possibilities for more outlandish murder MOs, actually created a detatchment from the characters.

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I'm a fan of both crime and sci-fi and maybe I stepped in at the wrong point in the series, but I just wasn't as engaged with the story as I had been hoping.

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This is the first of the 'in death' series that I have read and it fairs well as a stand alone story. Its not a book I would rave about however I did enjoy it and read it rather quickly once I got into it. Its always good when a murder mystery doesn't have a really obvious conclusion and I believe

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the author achieved this.

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A good mystery - Eve learns a little more about being a friend, the characters around the murder victim ring true.

Roberts as Robb keeps me reading, after 30 books and a few novellas about these characters because she really does suck you into the people, and both the immediate story and the slow

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long arc of all the lives of the characters over the last two plus years of book time.

The particulars of the "locked room" mystery are played with but mostly it's all the friends we've gotten to know. (Some interesting bits on chosen family here, by the way.)

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The last few In Death books have kind of been off for me. It isn't that I didn't enjoy then, it's just that I didn't enjoy them as much as I expected to given the previous 5 billion books in the series. I went into this book with some trepidation because of that.

I really enjoyed Eve's case. A

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young entrepreneur is found decapitated inside his locked holo room. Security indicates he was the only one inside at the room, and in fact his whole apartment. Investigation shows the weapon to be a broadsword. Eve knows it takes two to murder..one to do the killing and one to day. So where does the murder fit in?

Some cases are better developed than others, and some are just more interesting to me personally. I'm not sure if this falls into the former, but it definitely falls into the latter. I was truly interested in seeing Eve puzzle her way through the case. It wasn't long before I figured out who the killer was - it generally doesn't take me long - but that wasn't the appeal of this case anyway. It wasn't the who, but the why and the how.

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A pleasant escape on a Sunday afternoon with Eve & Rourke, et al. This time Eve is investigating a death caused by a virtual reality game with not enough virtual and a little too much reality. Of course all the usual members of the team are there to help and the steamy relationship between Eve and

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Rourke is still going strong. As much as I enjoy the story itself and, of course, the steam between Eve and Rourke I find the growing relationship and wordplay between Eve and Peabody to be the most fun in the books. Nothing outstanding, nothing different, just another good read for fans of the “in Death” series.

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Especially fun for geeks with loads of gaming references and a touch of Star Wars. There's also some good growth between Roarke and Eve on a working level. I really enjoyed this addition to the series.

Good installment in the In Death series. Not one of my favorites but it is interesting to see how Roberts ' future world fits with our own, In this one, the furure world doesn't seem as far out as it does in some of the books. Her characters are all here, some of them in small roles.

JD Robb, one of my guilty pleasures. Her stories don't require much thought, but they do keep my interest even if they are chick-lit.

I knew from the first instance of crime-scene investigation how the crime was committed. The only trouble was the motive and who did it. I enjoyed the interaction of

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all the characters and the expressed emotions. I enjoy the author's vision of the future - soy pups and tubes of Pepsi. It is interesting to see how Roark and Dallas are growing and learning to leave their past behind.

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The room was locked, no one had entered with the victim or after him but the game is played and he is dead. Lt. Eve Dallas has the mystery of her career on her capable hands. This was without a doubt one of the best books in this series thus far. I highly recommend this one.

Another great entry in the series. This one is a futuristic locked-room mystery. The victim (Bart) was locked in his holo-room played a video game when he was decapitated. Bart was a partner with three friends in a successful video-game company. My only quibble with this book is that the solution

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to the mystery was revealed to the reader in the very first pages, but it took 3/4 of the book before the cops figured it out. Not the killer mind you, just the way it was executed. One of the highlights of this book was Eve and Roarke attending the book launch party of Nadine's new book.

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A bright young man is brought down in his prime. He's the face of a very popular gaming society, one Eve's husband Roarke admires and competes against. But who among his friends wants him dead? And why? That's the job for Eve Dallas to find out, and soon before the culprit strikes another friend

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down.

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Lively entry in this long-standing and fine series. The 2060 patois, especially when "shebody" and her nerdy boyfriend converse gets a little wearing. However, this revisionist take on the classic locked room mystery is well worth reading. Or, listening as I did to this very good narration, by

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Susan Ericksen.

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