Passions in Death (In Death, #59) by J.D. Robb 
Series: In Death #59
Published by Macmillan Audio on September 3, 2024
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Susan Ericksen
Length: 13 hrs 58 min
Source: Netgalley
I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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Homicide Detective Eve Dallas hunts a killer who turns a wedding party into a murder scene in the latest novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, J.D. Robb.
On a hot August night, Lt. Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, speed through the streets of Manhattan to the Down and Dirty club, where a joyful, boisterous pre-wedding girls’ night out has turned into a murder scene. One of the brides lies in a pool of blood, garroted in a private room where she was preparing a surprise for her fiancée—two scrimped and saved-for tickets to Hawaii.
Despite the dozens of people present, useful witnesses are hard to come by. It all brings back some bad memories for Eve. In her uniform days, she’d suffered an assault in the very same room—but she’d been able to fight back and survive. She’d gotten justice. And now she needs to provide some for poor young Erin.
Eve knows that the level of violence and the apparent premeditation involved suggest a volatile mix of hidden, heated passion and ice-cold calculation. This is a crime that can be countered only by hard detective work and relentless dedication—and Eve will not stop until she finds the killer who destroyed this couple’s dreams before the honeymoon even began…
Passions in Death shows off the type of investigation we haven’t had in awhile.
In Death is one of my top favorite series but with 59 books out there, I can admit they aren’t all Must Reads. Nora Roberts is a firm believer in the ‘power of three’ which means it usually takes three deaths for Lt. Eve Dallas and her partner Detective Delia Peabody to pinpoint the killer. What that usually ends up meaning is that after the first murder we spent several chapters interviewing friends, co-workers and family of the victim to figure out who killed them. But in many stories, spending so much time getting to know the first victim turns out to be a waste of time since sometimes, such as in the last novel, Random in Death, there was nothing connecting the victim to the murderer other than time and place. While it is storytelling, it doesn’t do much to solve the crime knowing that “Sally” was beloved by everyone or that her neighbor thought she played her TV too loud. Sometimes I enjoy the storytelling. Sometimes I am just annoyed that none of this information really matters and want to move on with the real investigation.
So it is nice that in Passions in Death, we have one murder and the investigation is focused on one person. It then matters what we learn about the deceased. In Passions in Death, we have Erin Albright and Shauna Hunnicut who are about to get married and were having a bachelorette party at the Down and Dirty with all their friends. Erin has planned a surprise for Shauna, her dream honeymoon in Maui, and when she sneaks into one of the privacy rooms to change into a grass skirt and bring out the surprise tickets, she is attacked from behind and strangled. Her death is violent and very, very personal. Erin is a sweet friend and talented artist. Everyone purports to simply love her and they are so excited that Erin and Shauna have found each other–this perfect couple. So who hated Erin enough to brutally murder her?
There were several possibilities that Eve and Peabody bounce back and forth between. Was it an ex-lover of Erin’s or maybe Shauna’s? If so, why kill Erin and not Shauna? Erin has always been gay but most of Shauna’s relationships have been with men. Is this a former male lover who isn’t happy about being tossed aside for a woman?
This was a really good investigation because with each possible suspect there was real logic behind why they might have killed Erin and how it was possible for them to have pulled it off. I found myself ready several times to toss someone into the box and have Eve break them in interrogation, only to have Eve toss out a “or it could have been…” and finding myself agreeing that the new possibility sounded plausible. Even narrowing it down to the two highest probabilities, we were still bouncing between the guilt of both and it took breaking down one suspect to finally narrow it down to Erin’s killer.
While we go through the usual crime scene investigations, time with Morris in the morgue and time with the crime lab and with Feeney and his E-geeks, it all came down to interviewing witnesses and executing search warrants, like a real investigation, to solve this murder.
While Passions in Death won’t make my Top 10 Dallas/Peabody investigations, this one really had us guessing who are killer is ’til the bitter end.
Favorite Scene:
They crossed the garage to the elevators. “It feels to me like Albright and Hunnicut worked the same way so it’s hard to see a member of their tribe having a part in the murder.”
“Though you’ve never heard of intertribal warfare or treachery?”
Frowning, Peabody got on the elevator with Eve. “Okay, point. But wouldn’t it be hard to keep that hidden? Hidden so well nobody else in the tribe got a hint?”
“Peabody, if people weren’t at least half decent at wearing masks, we’d never have to investigate a homicide. We’d just scan the tribe, say and point ‘You. You there with the murder-face. You’re under arrest.’ Then the judge and/or jury would take one look when he went to trial and it’s ‘Murder-face is guilty on all counts.'”
“Murder-face.” Peabody speculated as the elevator bumped to a stop. When the doors opened, two uniforms and a guy with clown-orange hair, blue baggies with rainbow suspenders, and a shirt that read ‘Weeee’ stomped on. “What’s a murder-face look like? Bared-teeth? Slitty-eyes?”
Clown-hair turned around, blew a small blue bubble with his gum. Obviously, one of Feeney’s, Eve thought. “Is it a crime of passion or planned?”
“Planned.”
“Ditch the teeth and slitty-eyes. You’d go for something like–” He had bright green eyes, animated eyes that suddenly went blank. Not flat, like a cop’s, Eve noted, but just dead like a shark’s, and she had to admit, he pulled it off.
“Nah.” One of the uniforms shook her head as the elevator stopped again and more cops filed on. “Me. I’d go for the friendly face.” She burst out with a wide smile and eyes just over the edge of crazy. “Then it’s ‘Hey, pal.’ Right before you shove the knife in their throat.”
The other uniform disagreed. “Not, me. I’d go for the helpless with mild distress. ‘Oh, could you give me a hand? I can’t quite–‘ then you bash them over the head.”
By the time the elevator stopped again every cop in the car had an opinion on murder-face. Eve squeezed out and headed for the glides. Peabody trotted after her.
“I never thought about how diverse and varied murder-faces are.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
