"Eternity In Death" (novella) book 29 of "...In Death" series by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

"Eternity In Death" (novella)
book 29 of "...In Death" series
by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)
read by Susan Ericksen
Produced by Brilliance Audio
approx. 3.5 hours

Okay, I've been reading a huge batch of vampire, zombie and werewolf novels and thought I'd go back to listening to one of my favorite futuristic detective novels. Once again I visit the "...In Death" series by J.D. Robb and the thrilling world of Lt. Eve Dallas of the NYPSD as she solves another series of murders. Well guess what? This book, which I just picked out of the blue as one in the series I haven't read yet, has vampires. Either that is synchronicity at work or just luck, either way this book was great to hear.

To sum up Lt. Eve Dallas has escaped a childhood of torture only to become the best homicide detective on the New York Police and Securities Department in the mid 21st century. She is assisted by a wonderful cast of characters including her husband, Roarke, an Irish immigrant that now seems to own half the world and even a few planets and satellites, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. Other fun characters are here detective assistant Delia Peabody, Peabody's main squeeze Electronics Division Detective McNabb, the Chief of Electronics division, Feeney (her former partner in homicide) and Psychologist/Profiler Dr. Mira. The setting of these books is just far enough into the future to have some really cool sci-fi toys to work with or contend with, yet close enough where real detective work is still done.

The entire series is read by Susan Ericksen, who does a smashup job of capturing each and every character vocally. Sometimes I wonder if Ms. Ericksen doesn't suffer from some sort of personality disorder with all the voices that come out of her. Each character is distinct and acted vocally to perfection.

This book opens with a young, famous-for-being-famous, socialite anticipating the visit of a dark stranger that has promised she will keep her 23 year old youthful appearance, but first she has to die.

The next morning the socialite's body is discovered drained of blood and two punctures on the neck. Lt. Eve Dallas is called to the scene where the adventure into the darker side of New York City begins. Dallas, in no way believes in vampires, but her assistant, Peabody, does get the creeps on this one and starts wearing a cross.

The clues lead to a vampire themed club in New York's seedy underground. In Eve Dallas's time New York's Underground is a place where even the police have no jurisdiction. A club called "Bloodbath" is where the socialite recently frequented and the owner of the club seems to have some strange powers. Eve must pull in all her resources to ignore the supernatural beliefs trying to sneak into her thoughts and bring down a murderer masquerading as a vampire.

Once again J.D. Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts) creates an exciting detective thriller that you can't stop until the last word is spoken. Once again I will point out the single downfall of the entire series and that is the explicit sex scenes. I realize that J.D. Robb is a pseudonym for Nora Roberts, and Nora Roberts is a romance writer, but come on, enough is enough. The scenes are totally unnecessary. The story moves great without them and they add nothing to the story, plot or characters. The good side of this novella is that it is short and only one of these scenes is in the book. In audio format I just fast forward and lose nothing in the missed scene.