Book Review: “Creation In Death” by Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb

This is the first Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb book I have ever read, and let me tell you, it’s a really good read. I never would have read a Nora Roberts book (probably still won’t) because I’m not fond of the romance genre, but with her pseudonym of J.D. Robb, I think I can read these futuristic-detective books. As J.D. Robb, Nora writes the “In Death” books. They are all sci-fi based detective stories featuring Lt. Eve Dallas; at least in this one she is, she may have just started out as a detective in the series, I’ll have to read some of the earlier works to find out. The first book in the series was titled “Naked in Death” and this book is her most recent (number 26), published in November 2007. According to her website she’s not done either.


Now keep in mind that Nora Roberts is the actual writer, so yes there is a bit of romance mixed in, but it’s a good break from the thrill a second story that is this book, “Creation in Death.” It gives the reader the chance to take a breath and maybe brew up that much needed java to keep going. Trust me; you won’t want to put this book down.


When thinking of Sci-fi detective novels I often think of Isaac Asimov’s robot detective R. Daneel Olivaw. And while Asimov may have set the foundation for sci-fi detective stories, J.D. Robb (okay we all know it’s Nora Roberts, but these are so different from her other works I will refer to Robb as the author) writes a detective series set a couple of decades into the future that is easily compared to those Asimov detective stories. This is just far enough to create some cool gadgetry but it is also recent enough to still be limited. And the crime and finding a killer process in this book is done the old fashioned way, hittin’ the streets. So in reality this is a great detective story that just lingers enough into the sci-fi realm to keep it fun.


A body is found carefully covered and carefully laid out. The body is a young brunette woman with obvious wounds from various forms of torture. On her body is carved the time it took for her to die. The worst part is that for Lt. Eve Dallas, this is not a new scene. 9 years earlier, still young in the detective field Dallas and her then partner worked the same killer. They didn’t catch him then but he has resurfaced now, and Dallas vows, this time he will be caught.


From page one the reader is sucked into the story and never released. As a reader I was constantly helping to find clues and root for the good guys to hurry. This book provided some good adrenaline rushes and never stopped. While I won’t give away too much, I will say I really appreciated the story because it was not one of those tricky whodunits in which the culprit was someone within the inner circle of the story. It was actually a person that was not related to the main characters in any way. You know what I mean, one of those that the guy standing next to the lead detective is the killer all along. This one seemed like a real police force hunting down a real killer. Even the end of the case they have to go back to work the next day. Knowing the case is “solved” does not giveaway anything to keep this book from being exciting.