Review: CALCULATED IN DEATH

Calculated In Death by JD Robb
Book 36 of the In Death series
Narrated by Susan Ericksen
Genre: police investigation, crime fiction
Format: unabridged audiobook

About Calculated In Death:

On Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a woman lies dead at the bottom of a brownstone’s basement steps, stripped of all her valuables. Most cops might call it a mugging gone wrong, but Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows better.

A well-off accountant and a beloved wife and mother, Marta Dickenson doesn’t seem the type to be on anyone’s hit list. But when Eve and her partner, Peabody, find blood inside the brownstone, she knows Marta’s murder is the work of a killer who’s trained, yet not professional or smart enough to remove all the evidence.

Eve learns that on the day of her murder Marta was assigned to work on three audits, and begins to suspect that she was killed to cover up fraudulent activity. Eve is good at catching criminals, not crunching numbers, but luckily, she has her billionaire husband, Roarke, to figure out which companies in Marta’s files aren’t on the up-and-up.

When someone steals the files from Marta’s office, Eve must immerse herself in Roarke’s world of big business to figure out who’s cruel and callous enough to hire a hit on an innocent woman. And as the killer’s violent streak starts to escalate, Eve knows she has to draw him out, even if it means using herself as bait....

©2013 J. D. Robb (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Source: Info in the About Calculated In Death was taken from http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00B1D2LPM&qid=1363980527&sr=1-1 on 22/03/2013.

Review:

It's been a while since the last time I've read an In Death series book and it felt like meeting old friends again after a long separation. It might sound silly but it felt that way. So I was glad to read about Lt. Eve Dallas and the gang again! And despite the high expectations, this book did not disappoint! It still brought with it the same masterful story telling quality, humour, and wonderful relationship dynamics between the characters. And despite this being already Book 36 in the In Death series, it's attraction and fascination for me as a reader hasn't waned even a bit, which is not something anybody can say about a lot of serieses! That is solid evidence of how wonderful a story teller JD Robb is!

Now, even though the theme has been recycled a few times already in the series, the case involving a family member of the crime fighting team making it just a bit too close to home, this one took a slight deviation from previous books in that the family member of the crime fighting team is actually only peripherally involved with the criminals.

But recycled theme or not, JD Robb still makes the story come alive for the reader. Another evidence of JD Robb's talents? Or maybe I am just being a die-hard fan.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4.5
Ending = 4.5
World building = 5
Cover art = 4
Pace = N/A (12 hrs and 52 mins listening time)
Plot = 5
Narrator = 5

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 cherries