TRIGGER WARNING: This series contains graphic descriptions of violence, death, and sexual abuse, as well as drugs and sex. Vulgar language is used.
The series is set in futuristic New York City, and consists of more than fifty books.
The series follows the career and life of NYPSD (New York City Police and Security Department) lieutenant Eve Dallas, a workaholic with a dark past.
She struggles with juggling a career and a personal life, being she always had the ideology that the two contradicted each other.
In the first novel, Naked in Death, Dallas gets romantically involved with the suspect of a case she’s working on, a notorious Irish billionaire, Roarke, who is being suspected of murdering a prostitute, who’s also the granddaughter of the city’s senator.
After ruling Roarke out as a suspect, they work together (unofficially) to catch the culprit and bring justice to the victim and the other prostitutes that are subsequently murdered after her. After doing so, Dallas reveals her tragic, murky past to Roarke.
Dallas goes through a near death experience ending the first book and leaving the second novel to continue this futuristic, action packed story.
In the second novel, Glory in Death, Dallas investigates the murder of Cicely Towers, an acclaimed Prosecuting Attorney who had a personal connection to Dallas’s higher-up, Commander Whitney. Soon after, the body of a famous actress, Yvonne Metcalf, is also discovered, having been killed with the same MO (modus operandi (method)).
A famous reporter, Nadine, assists Dallas in this case. Although their plan goes awry, the two are still able to effectively work together. In this novel, not only does Dallas get close to death once again, but we also see her and Roarke’s relationship advance.
In the third novel, Immortal in Death, Dallas investigates two seemingly unrelated cases, amidst dealing with her hectic personal and romantic life with Roarke. One of her informants, Boomer, is brutally murdered, with a connection to drugs evident. Dallas is then briefly introduced to Pandora, the antagonist in the lives of her friend Mavis, the eccentric, aspiring singer, and Mavis’s lover, designer Leonardo.
Pandora is murdered soon after an altercation with the other two women. Both Mavis and Leonardo are suspects in her death. Dallas works to prove their innocence while also working through the traumas of her childhood.
The series started in 1995, and is still being added onto. Currently, fifty-seven books are published, with a new book, Random in Death, set to be released in January of 2024.
If you enjoy reading a fledged out, intricate series, then In Death is the series for you. Each book is around three hundred pages, and will keep you occupied, as well as entertained.
The series is full of enticing murder mysteries that keep you on your toes with the multitude of plot twists, while also exploring the romance side of life. The series demonstrates how truly unpredictable life is, and that it’s okay to ask for help and be vulnerable.
J.D. Robb is the pseudonym of Nora Roberts, who writes more in the fantasy and realistic fiction genres under her real name. She’s written more than two hundred books, so there is a multitude to choose from.