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Book Review - Kindred in Death by J. D. Robb

Category Book Review J. D. Robb Kindred in Death
A picture named M2

As usual, J. D. Robb's (aka Nora Roberts) latest In Death novel went to the top of my "to be read" piles when it arrived at the library...  Kindred in Death.  Not sure if it was due to a lot of busy-ness going on in my life or what, but this one didn't seem to jump out and grab me like the others have on a consistent basis.  Nothing overtly wrong with it... it just seemed to be missing that "something" that makes each Eve Dallas crime mystery such a treat for me.

Dallas is actually taking a full three day holiday as Kindred starts.  In fact, she's quite happy, feeling decadent, and may even allow herself to be talked into going away to a small island for a day or two.  Easy enough when your husband Roarke has all the money in the world.  But crime doesn't take a vacation, and Dallas is tagged by name to take the lead on a particularly gruesome case.  A police captain returns home from vacation to find his teenage daughter brutally murdered in their house.  He wants the best person in the force to find the killer, and that means Dallas.  Dallas has to bury her own history of abuse as a child to handle the raw emotions and cold cruelty of the killer.  But as soon as Dallas and her team get close, they realize that the killer has lead them astray with yet another false identity.  Unless they can figure out why the targets were chosen (and who will be next), they'll be powerless to stop the killing in time to save one or more lives.

So why didn't Kindred pop for me?  The closest I can come to figuring that out is the underlying plot that is driving the killer.  It strings out quite a ways, and when it does become clear I didn't find myself buying into it very deeply.  The secondary plot involves Dallas getting roped into being the maid of honor for a close friend who is getting married, and of course she's completely out of her element when it comes to expressing anything approaching hospitality and emotional friendship. :)  It's typical Dallas, and it does tie back into previous storylines, but again I just wasn't as deeply involved as I normally find myself.

I still like the In Death series, and by no means am I thinking this is the beginning of the downward slide.  I'll just chalk this one up to being slightly off as well as coming at a time where I wasn't as fully interested as normal.

Disclosure:
Obtained From: Library

Payment: Borrowed

Comments

Gravatar Image1 - I read this one on Kindle when it first came out and had a similar reaction. Still liked it quite a bit, but found the pull that I've had toward the other Eve Dallas stories a bit lacking. Doesn't change my plans for the next book(s) though, either.

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