"futuristic police procedural"

In March 2060, NYPSD Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas watches an action movie with her husband Roarke when an official call comes in from Commander Whitney. He tells her to go to a crime scene without providing her any information as to why he ordered her to do this on her day off. When she arrives at the location and examines the corpse, she knows why her superior provided her with nothing.

Eve realizes that Whitney wanted her to verify independently his theory that "the Groom" a serial killer who tortures his victims to death and then carves into their bodies how long they lasted under torture. Dallas believes this is the same culprit who she failed to catch nine years ago. He killed four women back then and many others in other states and countries, but apparently he is back in NYC. Eve vows to cage this animal.

Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb is at the top of her game in CREATION IN DEATH, the latest exciting entry in her futuristic police procedural series. Even though the tale occurs only five plus decades from now, the audience easily accepts the future ambience as tidbits are blended into the fine story line. This is a terrific cat and mouse thriller with the determined Eve assuming she is the hungry cat on the prowl while her opponent is a master tiger tamer.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 8, 2007

Summary

NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas keeps the streets of a near-future New York City safe in this extraordinary series. But even she makes mistakes, and is haunted by those she couldn't save—and the killers she couldn't capture. When the body of a young brunette is found in East River Park, artfully positioned and marked by signs of prolonged and painful torture, Eve is catapulted back to a case nine years earlier. The city was on edge from a killing spree that took the lives of four women in fifteen days, courtesy of a man the media tagged "The Groom"—because he put silver rings on the fingers of his victims.

When it turns out that the young brunette was employed by Eve's billionaire husband, Roarke, she brings him in on the case—a move that proves fitting when it becomes chillingly clear that the killer has made his attack personal. The victim was washed in products from a store Roarke owns, and laid out on a sheet his company manufactures.

With the Groom's monstrous return, Eve is determined to finish him once and for all. Familiar with his methods, Eve knows that he has already grabbed his next victim. Time is running out on another woman's life.

And chances are he's working up to the biggest challenge of his illustrious career—abducting a woman who will test his skills and who promises to give him days and days of pleasure before she dies: Eve.