More than a decade ago it wasn’t public knowledge that the genius behind J.D. Robb was best-selling author Nora Roberts, but readers were immediately taken with Eve Dallas’ integrity, strength and heart and her burgeoning relationship with the mysterious Roarke.
The Gothic Journal hailed Robb’s work as “a unique blend of hard-core police drama, science fiction and passionate romance” while The Paperback Forum called it “a fantastic new detective series.”
J.D. Robb was a product of numbers: by 1995, there was a surplus of Nora Roberts’ titles to be released by her publishers and she continued to create more. Reluctant to publish romantic suspense books similar to what she was already writing under a pseudonym, Nora had been playing with the idea of a strong, idealistic woman on the NY police force in the future. J.D. Robb was born. The initials were taken from Ms. Roberts’ sons, Jason and Dan, while Robb was a shortened form of Roberts. She wrote a three-book arc that had Eve Dallas solving three different murders, but winding its way through all three was the continuing thread of her relationship with the mysterious billionaire Roarke that started in the first book when he was a suspect in a high-profile case.
Looking back from the vantage point of the release of the 25th book in the series, Nora commented, “I think we saw solid potential with the release of the first book. Enough, at least, for everyone to say: Okay, let's do three more.”
She continued, “For me, the emotional investment clicked during the first draft of the first book. I really fell for the characters, and hoped the readers would respond to them so I could keep writing the series.”
A series with a continuing, and growing, cast of characters gave Nora the chance to explore the people she created and peel the layers off book by book. Eve and Roarke were about to get married at the end of that initial three-book arc and are on their honeymoon as the fourth book opens. This afforded Roberts the chance to explore a marriage through the subsequent 19 books to the delight – and despair of some readers.
Those readers have been vocal about their desire to see the couple have a baby or for Eve to become a captain in the department. A baby, explains Nora Roberts would change the way Eve does her job – which is physical and emotional to the point of exhaustion. The answer to that frequently asked question is that a baby would mean the end of the series. As for a captaincy, it’s always possible.
Besides the exploration of the marital state, the cast of characters has grown as Eve, very much a loner in Naked in Death, has opened up her circle to include a partner, her fellow officers and a domineering butler who came along with Roarke. Again, readers have become addicted to seeing what’s going on in the secondary characters’ lives and when there isn’t enough of a particular favorite, they love to ask “Why not?”
“It's the story – it’s always about the story,” explained Nora. “It's gratifying when readers fall for secondary characters and want more. Sometimes there is more--and sometimes there just isn't. If a character has a recurring role, then he or she will pop up--as a cameo or in a more active role--when the story calls for it.”
It wasn’t until the 12th book in the series, Betrayal in Death, that the publisher fully acknowledged that J.D. Robb is indeed Nora Roberts. In the fall of 2003, the two parts of the Nora Roberts whole joined together to write Remember When. The first half was a Roberts’ romantic suspense set in the present, the second half was a Robb In Death that saw Eve picking up a thread that relates to the first part of the book. Each In Death book now carries the banner: Nora Roberts writing as JD Robb. What started as an experiment is now firmly a part of the Nora Roberts phenomenon.
In the latest novel from #1 New York Times-bestselling author J.D. Robb, it is game over for the criminals pursued by NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas.
Bart Minnock, founder of the computer-gaming giant U-Play, enters his private playroom, and eagerly can't wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to play the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company's latest top-secret project, Fantastical.
The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game. . . .
NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is having as much trouble figuring out how Bart Minnock was murdered as who did the murdering. The victim's girlfriend seems sincerely grief-stricken, and his quirky-but-brilliant partners at U-Play appear equally shocked. No one seemed to have a probÂlem with the enthusiastic, high-spirited millionaire. Of course, success can attract jealousy, and gaming, like any business, has its fierce rivalries and dirty tricks-as Eve's husband, Roarke, one of U- Play's competitors, knows well. But Minnock was not naive, and quite capable of fighting back in the real world as well as the virtual one.
Eve and her team are about to enter the next level of police work, in a world where fantasy is the ultimate seduction-and the price of defeat is death...
Ancient church rituals meet cutting-edge crime solving in the latest novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that's “Law & Order: SVU in the future"(Entertainment Weekly)
In the year 2060, sophisticated investigative tools can help catch a killer. But there are some questions even the most advanced technologies cannot answer.
Ridley Pearson has praised J. D. Robb's suspense as "nerve-jangling." Her latest thriller sets a new standard for suspense, as the priest at a Catholic funeral mass brings the chalice to his lips - and falls over dead.
When Detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas confirms that the consecrated wine contained potassium cyanide, she's determined to solve the murder of Father Miguel Flores, despite her discomfort with her surroundings. It's not the bodegas and pawnshops of East Harlem that bother her, though the neighborhood is a long way from the stone mansion she shares with her billionaire husband, Roarke. It's all that holiness flying around at St. Christobal's that makes her uneasy.
A search of the victim's sparsely furnished room reveals little - except for a carefully hidden religious medal with a mysterious inscription, and a couple of underlined Bible passages. The autopsy reveals more: faint scars of knife wounds, a removed tatto - and evidence of plastic surgery, suggesting that “Father Flores" may not have been the man his parishioners had thought.
Now, as Eve pieces together clues that hint at gang connections and a deeply personal act of revenge, she believes she's making progress on the case. Until a second murder - in front of an even larger crowd of worshippers - knocks the whole investigation sideways. And Eve is left to figure out who committed these unholy acts - and why.
It doesn't surprise Lieutenant Eve Dallas that Thomas Anders's scandalous death is a source of titillation and speculation to the public -- and of humiliation to his family. But while people in the city are talking about it, those close to Anders aren't so anxious to do the same.
With some help from her billionaire husband, Roarke, Eve's soon knocking on doors -- or barging through them -- to find answers. But the facts don't add up. Physical evidence suggests that the victim didn't struggle. The security breach in the apartment indicates that the killer was someone known to the family, but everyone's alibi checks out. Was this a crime of passion in a kinky game gone wrong or a meticulously planned execution? It's up to Dallas to solve a case in which strangers may be connected in unexpected, and deadly, ways.
When the newly promoted captain of the NYPSD and his wife return a day early from their vacation, they were looking forward to spending time with their bright and vivacious sixteen-year-old daughter who had stayed behind.
Not even their worst nightmares could have prepared them for the crime scene that awaited them instead. Brutally murdered in her bedroom, Deena's body showed signs of trauma that horrified even the toughest of cops; including our own Lieutenant Eve Dallas, who was specifically requested by the captain to investigate.
When the evidence starts to pile up, Dallas and her team think they are about to arrest their perpetrator; little do they know yet that someone has gone to great lengths to tease and taunt them by using a variety of identities. Overconfidence can lead to careless mistakes. But for Dallas, one mistake might be all she needs to bring justice.
When the body of a young brunette is found in East River Park, marked by signs of prolonged and painful torture, Eve Dallas is catapulted back to nine years ago. A man the media tagged The Groom because he put silver rings on the fingers of his victims had the city on edge with a killing spree that took the lives of four women in fifteen days. But now, The Groom has returned - and Eve's determined to finish him.
Familiar with his methods, Eve knows that he has already grabbed his next victim. When it turns out that the dead woman was employed by Eve's billionaire husband, Roarke, she brings him onto the case - a move that proves fitting when it becomes chillingly clear that the killer has made it personal. And chances are that he's working up to the biggest challenge of his illustrious career - abducting a woman who will test his skills on every level and who promises to give him days and days of pleasure before she dies: Eve.
#1 New York Times– bestselling author J. D. Robb takes us to the New York City of 2060, where Lieutenant Eve Dallas faces down a cop killer.
A Amarylis Coltraine may have recently transferred to the New York City police force from Atlanta, but she's been a cop long enough to know how to defend herself against an assailant. When she's taken down just steps away from her apartment, killed with her own weapon, for Eve the victim isn't just "one of us."
Dallas's friend Chief Medical Examiner Morris and Coltraine had started a serious relationship, and from all accounts the two were headed for a happy future together. But someone has put an end to all that. After breaking the news to Morris, Eve starts questioning everyone from Coltraine's squad, informants, and neighbors, while Eve's husband, Roarke, digs into computer data on Coltraine's life back in Atlanta. To their shock, they discover a connection between this case and their own painful, shadowy pasts.
The truth will need to be uncovered one layer at a time, starting with the box that arrives at Cop Central addressed to Eve containing Coltraine's guns, badge, and a note from her killer: "You can have them back. Maybe someday soon, I'll be sending yours to somebody else."
But Eve Dallas doesn't take too kindly to personal threats, and she is going to break this case, whatever it takes. And that's a promise.
Eve Dallas has a grisly double homicide to solve when two young lovers-both employees of the same prestigious accounting firm-are brutally killed on the same night. It doesn't leave Eve a lot of leftover time to put together a baby shower for her buddy Mavis, but that's supposedly what friends are for.
Now Mavis needs another favor. Tandy Willowby, one of the moms-to-be in Mavis's birthing class, didn't show up for the shower. A recent emigrant from London, Tandy has few friends in New York, and no family-and she was really looking forward to the party. And when Eve enters Tandy's apartment and finds a gift for Mavis's shower wrapped and ready on the table-and a packed bag for the hospital still on the floor next to it-tingling runs up and down her spine.
Normally, such a case would be turned over to Missing Persons. But Mavis wants no one else on the job but Eve-and Eve can't say no. She'll have to track Tandy down while simultaneously unearthing the deals and double-crosses hidden in the files of some of the city's richest and most secretive citizens, in a race against this particularly vicious killer. Luckily, her multimillionaire husband Roarke's expertise comes in handy with the number crunching. But as he mines the crucial data that will break the case wide open, Eve faces an all too real danger in the world of flesh and blood
