"Salvation in Death" by J.D. Robb

Salvation in Death
by J.D. Robb
Read by Susan Ericksen
Produced by Brilliance Audio
13 hours 23 minutes

Once again I get to visit the kick-butt New York cop of the Future, Lt. Eve Dallas. This time around it was less sci-fi and more simple detective work...there was of course a bit with recreating a portion of New York city in a hologram, that was cool, but not enough to grab the sci-fi part of my brain.

However the main thing that keeps the whole "...in Death" series by J.D. Robb interesting is the characters. Robb (aka Nora Roberts), has created a cast of some wonderful characters, and no matter what the crime these characters are fun, interesting and even seem like old friends, especially after reading a couple of the books. So I stayed interested regardless of the lack of cool gadgets.

You've got Eve Dallas a tough cop with great detective smarts who is haunted by a terrifying past. Her husband Roarke, the Irish street thug turned entrepeneur who now owns most everything on or off Planet. Some great side characters are also thrown into the mix with Eve's assistant Detective Peabody and her love interest, the colorful electronics division Detective McNabb, and a score of others that have a past, a present and you become interested in their future.

I go back and forth in this series between the audiobooks and the physical books. The one thing that keeps me coming back is the reader, Susan Ericksen. Ms. Ericksen's vocal abilities run the gamut in every book in this series. She captures with ease the Irish lilt in Roarke's voice, the entire character of Detective Peabody is encapsulated in the voice used. Not a single character is missed each with his/her own voice summing up their character. In this novel she even captures the accent of residents of Spanish Harlem with ease and as always is very convincing.

In "Salvation in Death," poisoned wine kills a priest at the Catholic funeral mass, Eve Dallas is called in as primary investigator. She pieces together disturbing clues that suggest identity theft, gang connections, and a deeply personal act of revenge. Then a second murder knocks the whole investigation sideways. With another poisoning of a religious figure, this time a televangelist with a world following. Something about the second killing doesn't seem to jibe with Eve. And soon she's investigating 2 separate but similar murders.

The murders of the two religious figures sends Eve on a crime-solving adventure that creates a bit of a morality tale that seems to say not all in the world is black and white, the gray areas are what are becoming more and more clear to Lt. Eve Dallas, NYPSD.