I love every JD Robb book. I’ve read them all - and that’s a lot. I think this is number 47 or 48 in the series and if anyone is looking for a long book series, this could be it. Always murder and always a mystery. Detective Eve Dallas, her partner Delia Peabody, and the ever handsome and rich Roarke make every book a comfort. I always recommend starting early in the series because you have to know every character and how they evolved, to appreciate them.

In this one, the Baby Darling took a turn and I wasn’t expecting who done it.

These books never seem to disappoint. This series is SO long, it would seem that by now it would go stale - many other series haven't hit the halfway point yet and are dead and dry and predictable. I suppose these books are predictable - you know which characters will pop up and mostly what they will say/do, and that Eve will solve the crime in the end, but the procedure along the way never seems dull for me.

And I realized while listening to this one, Robb/Roberts did a hell of a job of predicting the future. The first book came out in 1995 - holy crap!! - and she did an amazing job of predicting the future here. This series could easily feel as cringy as watching old episodes of Lost in Space with predictions of the future, but she did well, and as the series continues, you can see present day issues and topics being woven into this future fantasy.

And audio narration by Susan Erickson is still top notch, as always.

J.D. Robb’s long-running series continues to stay fresh and interesting. Robb (pseudonym for Nora Roberts) has done it again in Abandoned in Death. It’s June 2061 and main character New York City Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas along with Detective Delia Peabody are sent to a playground where a young woman has been found dead. The twenty-something woman is discovered lying on a bench. Her presentation appears to have been staged as she is dressed in vintage clothing, has fresh makeup on, a new tattoo and in her folded hands is a piece of construction paper with “Bad Mommy” written in crayon. The search is on as two more women are reported missing and are believed to have been kidnapped by the killer, who appears to be a man traumatized by his childhood – something Eve can relate to. Time is running out.

While the books take place in the near future and have some futuristic aspects, at its heart, this is simply a darn good crime mystery / police procedural series. Eve is a talented, strong woman with a great group of supporting people around her. This includes her husband Roarke who happens to be one of the richest men in the world. And their deep love (and lust) for one another adds a nice element of romance to the stories. This latest installment is focused on solving the case and saving the women. The way the team profiled the killer and was able to put all the pieces together was exceptional. It's one of the best in the series in the past few years and I’ve enjoyed them all.

Rated 4.5 stars.

So. I went back and forth on the rating on this one because there were some bright spots, and then something would happen which would work my nerves. Bright spots were we finally have a  Louise/Charles interaction after like 20 books. We have Mira actually doing her job and we don't have Eve in there just somehow being ten steps ahead of her. We don't have much of Roarke in this one. In fact it took a while for an "In Death" book for him to show up. The actual case felt like an older "In Death" before Eve became super cop and was bringing down organizations that not even Homeland could take down. Now the stuff that didn't work was numerous (hence the 3 stars). For example, can we please stop with Nadine being the best reporter ever who somehow figured out a major part of this case? It didn't even make sense. I started muttering dues ex machina through the whole spiel and honestly skimmed until she was finally gone. It just didn't work and the less time spent on it will make me happy. I also don't like the character of Jamie (sorry, not sorry) and I have given up figuring out his age at this point. Speaking of ages, it is brought up that Eve needs to start thinking about what to get Roarke for their third anniversary and I laughed so hard I almost choked. The timeline on this series is a mess. I give up trying to figure it out. And the writing...well I will get to that down below.

"Abandoned in Death" follows Eve and her partner Peabody as they work a case where a young woman is found dead with a sign nearby saying "Bad Mommy." When the dead woman is linked to a missing case, Eve and Peabody realize that someone out there is grabbing young women who look similar and trying to recreate his mother, until she becomes "Bad Mommy" and must be killed by him. 

Eve is Eve. Still messing up sayings and all of that. But she is softer. Due to the first murder being near where Mavis and Leonardo are rebuilding their dream home, she wants the murderer caught. Of course this leads to everyone being protective (though honestly it felt dumb since we know that Mavis didn't even fit the victim profile) and we of course had to hear about the house renovation some more. This is going to go on for like 10 books isn't it?

Roarke was fine. A little less present in this one. He is still hoping to get Jamie to come work for him full-time in the future, and blah I am sick of hearing/reading about that whole thing.

We have Peabody who was really solid in this one. There's a whole thing where she throws out about her sex life with McNabb that for once made me laugh. Probably because she ran after. But I am always surprised that she and Roarke do this thing where they think that Eve of all people isn't' listening when they talk. She is, she just doesn't feel the need to comment on every thing. They should get that at this point.

Mavis, Leonardo, Bella, Charles, Louise, Nadine, etc. all appear in this one. I think it's a first in a long time that these characters were all in the same book together. 

Dr. Mira was great (once again the first time in a long time for me) and we even got Yancey in this one. I think it's been a while for him too. 

The writing in this one was weird for me. I felt like I was reading a Nora Roberts standalone and not a J.D. Robb book. It felt a bit surreal at times. We have this one playing with different narrative styles. We have a "Before" time following a young woman who we don't know who she is, but that she seems to be important to the case. Also as I said above, Robb follows one of the kidnapped victims in this one. In fact, we get some of the kidnap victims perspective in this one. I don't think that has been done ever in this series. If we do follow the victims, it just seems to be right before they were murdered. We get a sense of them and that's it. This one we delved in deep. We also get to read a letter and it just once again didn't feel like a Robb book, but a Nora Roberts romantic suspense novel. I don't know yet if this is good or bad, but I saw some readers were having trouble with this so I thought I just bring it up. I also bring it up because I noticed it and it kept throwing my reading. 

The flow was a bit up and down because of the narrative style. I honest don't know if this works for 'In Death" or not. We usually just follow Eve in the third person and of course Roarke sometimes, but mostly we are just with Eve. This one had so many players in it that I can see why some people complained there was too much padding. I am waiting to see how the next book plays out. Because if Robb does keep this style up, it's a change from her prior books.  

The setting is New York in the 2060s and I think at this point, most readers get the science fiction elements. 

The ending was a surprise, I think because you realized what Eve and Mira were working to do on this one. I liked how this all worked out and the final ending though. 

I was so happy to receive the next installment of Eve Dallas as an arc. I’ve not really bothered my h with signing up before but so glad I did!

I can’t believe this is number 54 and I’ve read them all. It’s kinda like visiting old friends when you open the cover of the next in a series as long running as this one.

As you can imagine after reading them all somy stand out more than others. I think this is a solid but not my favorite installment. The story pulled me in from the beginning and switching points of view was interesting and kept me reading. In some books it can pull you out but it didn’t for me here, I think it drove the story on very well.

I was a little disappointed that there were no suspicions about the perpetrator until almost the end, would have liked a few more clues, but the ending was very satisfying for me.

So on one other book in this series, I left a one star review and a detailed reason of why I didn't like it, and in the case of this installment I'm gonna have to leave at least a two star review. But I want to make one thing clear, just because I left negative reviews on two books, it DOES NOT mean that I don't like the series. Quite the opposite, I'm into this series because it has similarities to Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner and I consider the Eve Dallas/Roarke series to be part of the Cyberpunk genre.

Now that I got that out of the way, I need to air my grievances with this book, the flashback prologue spoiled way too much on how the story was going to turn out, and the flashback scenes were very unnecessary and they slowed the story down. The scenes that featured the antagonist and his victims took about half of the book, so much so, that it hindered my ability to even enjoy the scenes that focused on Eve and Roarke doing their thing along with the rest of the protagonists.

Now some of you guys are going to say that Nora was trying to do something different with this installment, but the fact is that there was a complete 180 degree turn with this installment and as a result I just could not enjoy the story. So much so that it's lead to me to form this opinion that it's quite possibly the worst series installment since Conspiracy in Death. I am dead fucking serious.

I really enjoyed this book. It felt more like her earlier works where you were trying to figure out who committed the crime. I have felt that her last 6-7 books were practically the same book except changing some details. I will continue to read this series because I have enjoyed how much Eve Dallas has changed from book 1. I hope she adds more interaction with other characters from previous book and just continues to build on Eve and Roarke's relationship.