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.