Glory in Death (In Death, Book 2)
by J.D. Robb

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Book Reviews of Glory in Death (In Death, Book 2)

Book Review: Should be a TV Series
Summary: 5 Stars

Didn't matter -- it's a gripping, absorbing, riveting read even when you jump into the middle of the series. I'm sure I'd still enjoy reading the prequel.

But that fact alone - that the mystery and character relationships "work" whether you've read the previous book or not - makes this series eligible to become a TV series like Murder She Wrote.

And there's more. Nora Roberts has sketched her world as being in 2058 and beyond, and has said without showing that interstellar travel exists, interstellar business exists. Presumably nonhuman civilizations must exist too because there's no way we could invent an interstellar drive and create major businesses out there in a mere 55 years.

But Roberts has downplayed that background -- at least in this early part of the series.

With such a very light hand on the futurology, she has left room for the Studios to decide how big a budget this TV series would need -- and how much solid sf futurology they want to show, and how much they want to leave fuzzy so they can use cheap sets and makeup.

In fact, in this novel, the sf part of the background would seem to any sf reader/writer to be non-existent. Some people might complain about that, but I thought it to be a very astute commercial move.

It has made me want to read more of these novels in hopes that this background will appear. I would like to see Eve Dallas travel with Roarke to an interstellar setting and solve crimes there -- like Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel.

I did note the tribute to Ayn Rand in naming Roarke, and some oblique tributes to Faye Kellerman's Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series in the family issues approached from a totally different direction -- and I found echoes of Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series that I don't think anyone else would see in Eve Dallas's spunk and obvious emotional problems from early childhood.

And even beyond that I see a Relationship developing between Eve Dallas and Roarke that is rare and glorious -- a sexual relationship between two people who love each other because each sees the other as admirable.

In real life it is rare to see a man admire a woman and love her too though women often love those they admire. This could become a model relationship among equals, mixing romance, mystery, and sociological-sf.

There's only one bit of backgrounding missing in this second book that's annoying me. There is no explanation of how it could be that a cop (or in this case several cops) are left to handle a case where they have a personal interest. A conflict of interests like that would be more than sufficient cause to block Eve from working the case she's on.

There's got to be some hidden backgrounding there, major changes in the law, major changes in oversight and checks-and-balances due to the use of computers and databases, and maybe due to the influence of non-humans from the galactic civilization that's lurking beyond the edges of perception here.

I will want to read the rest of this series as I can lay my hands on them, and I'm already recommending it to readers of my own novels.

Summary of Glory in Death (In Death, Book 2)

Literature & Fiction Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Women Sleuths
• Police Procedurals
• Thrillers > Suspense
• Romance > Romantic Suspense