Framed in Death (In Death, #61) by J.D. Robb 
Published by Macmillan Audio on September 2, 2025
Genres: Crime Drama
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Susan Ericksen
Length: 13 hrs 11 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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Death imitates art in the brand-new crime thriller starring homicide cop Eve Dallas from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author J.D. Robb.
Manhattan is filled with galleries and deep-pocketed collectors who can make an artist's career with a wave of a hand. But one man toils in obscurity, his brilliance unrecognized while lesser talents bask in the glory he believes should be his. Come tomorrow, he vows, the city will be buzzing about his work.
Indeed, before dawn, Lt. Eve Dallas is speeding toward the home of the two gallery owners whose doorway has been turned into a horrifying crime scene overnight. A lifeless young woman has been elaborately costumed and precisely posed to resemble the model of a long-ago Dutch master, and Dallas plunges into her investigation.
You know I’m a huge fan but feel free to skip this one.
Lt. Eve Dallas and her partner, Dt. Delia Peabody, are called to the scene of a body which has been left posed outside of a home in Manhattan. When they arrive, they find that they are at the home of a gallery owner and the deceased woman in the odd clothing is made to look like a famous painting.
And so it goes that someone is killing street LC’s and leaving them in costumes, wired and posed after various famous paintings outside of galleries or the homes of gallery owners. They easily come to the conclusion that the killer is a rich since the cost of the materials for each costume runs about $250,000.
I found the idea of this one to be too close to one of her other stories, Portrait in Death (Book 16), where a photograph is killing and posing his victims for photographs–this included Crack’s younger sister as one of the victims.
The killer was meh. Even the witnesses couldn’t remember anything about him. The investigation was okay although I once again focused on the fact that her whole department picked up parts of the case and that the ME and the lab, had information ready for Eve within hours. This is NYC, even in the future, I can’t imagine that the chief medical examiner on Manhattan can jump on every one of Eve’s cases before the body is even cold.
We did get an extended tour of the great house renovation which has finally been completed, and we get as much joy as Dallas that we can finally stop talking about it.
I love this series and jump at every opportunity to receive a copy of the next In Death. I am coming down hard on what is the 61st story in a series, and how hard it must be to stay fresh with them at this point. Her relationship with Roarke is pretty solid at this point and any fights they have gotten into recently feel forced and opportunistic, like adding an obligatory scene where Eve has a fight with the soda again or the candy thief strikes again (you know that has to be Roarke with his hand still “in it”).
While I will apologize for being cranky when a story only comes up as meh, there is a reason most series don’t last as long as this one as it is hard to keep coming up with something fresh and eventually you lose readers no matter how dedicated. Even though this is the year 2061, it seems current technology has caught up with Nora’s imagination and we don’t even have anything cool or scifi showing up.
With the exception of the great house tour, there was nothing unique or interesting about this investigation or anything that really furthered the development of the characters.
