Review: Secrets in Death by J.D. Robb


Print Length: 400 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (September 05, 2017)

From Goodreads.com: The chic Manhattan nightspot Du Vin is not the kind of place Eve Dallas would usually patronize, and it’s not the kind of bar where a lot of blood gets spilled. But that’s exactly what happens one cold February evening.
The mortally wounded woman is Larinda Mars, a self-described “social information reporter,” or as most people would call it, a professional gossip. As it turns out, she was keeping the most shocking stories quiet, for profitable use in her side business as a blackmailer. Setting her sights on rich, prominent marks, she’d find out what they most wanted to keep hidden and then bleed them dry. Now someone’s done the same to her, literally—with a knife to the brachial artery.
Eve didn’t like Larinda Mars. But she likes murder even less. To find justice for this victim, she’ll have to plunge into the dirty little secrets of all the people Larinda Mars victimized herself. But along the way, she may be exposed to some information she really didn’t want to know…
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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

One of the biggest issues I had with this story was the "loose end" when it came to finding out the truth behind Larinda's real identity. What seemed like a pivotal piece of information boiled down to.... nothing. Seriously. It didn't help bring the killer to justice, it didn't even really explain anything. All the build up and then.. a major let down. 

A second thing that made no sense to me is just how it has taken Roarke so long to figure out something that has literally been under his nose the entire time. It would seem an obvious jump from point A to point B for me, and yet it takes him the better part of his life to figure it out? 

When I look at this story as a part of the whole collection of stories, it is obvious that there is something missing. We get very little time with any of the characters we have come to know and love (Feeney, McNab, Mira, the list goes on and on), and yet we are forced to delve into the secret lives of people we have never met. And frankly, while I get that was the purpose of the story and it built up how horrible a person Larinda truly was, I think we could have gone without the sheer number of "secrets". Added to that it seemed that three of them were the SAME story, just two were "secrets" and one was tied to a present case being run by Truehart and Baxter). It all just came across as lazy writing. 

Overall,this story may appeal to some of her newer readers, but long-time fans of the series may be in for disappointment. I will continue to read more from this author, and I hope the next installment of this series will be more of what I have come to expect.  

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                               Secrets in Death is available from Amazon.com


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