Naked in Death (In Death, Book 1)

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I think most long-running series take a while to get into their stride although I admit I find it faintly intimidating when I hear it takes the first seven to warm up, but gets really good after that. I think what really troubles me about men who “don’t hit women” is that it implies that the only thing stopping that man from hitting any given woman is his personal and magnanimous decision not to. If a man wants to hit another man, there’s a recognition that the other man is an agent in that, and whether you hit him or not is something he should have a personal say in. I think to me hitting someone is like swearing at them in the sense that generally speaking you shouldn’t go around swearing at people but if you have a policy of swearing in front of men but not in front of women then you’re actually sort of covertly policing the behaviour of women. I think the problem with the weaker opponent line is that it’s not really followed through in practice – obviously I’m not talking about the books here, I’m talking about life in general. There are certain categories of person who are socially designated as being unable to defend themselves – women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities – but it does not , for example, include men who aren’t conventionally masculine.

I didn’t find the nineties-ness particularly stopped me getting into the book, I just noticed it as a feature of that era of sf. And I think you’re right that the nineties is a funny era because it doesn’t have the total cluelessness that you had in the eighties, where you expected that the internet would be this kind of magic dreamworld that you plug into with your brain, but, at the same, there are major technological developments that just nobody could have predicted – like data storage or even smartphones. I’m actually a big fan of homage mysteries so that wouldn’t really trouble me, particularly because while I’m enthusiastic about the genre, I’m not terribly well educated in it.

The case is at 27 West Broadway, in an area known as Prostitutes' Walk. Upon arrival, Eve is pleased to see her old partner, Ryan Feeney, who is now head of the Electronics Detectives Division (4). Eve also recognizes Roarke from the picture she saw of him; he is standing alone (34). As she watches him, he turns his head and looks directly into Eve’s eyes. They stare at each other for a moment, and then people move between them (35). My main quibbles were with some exoticism that was evident in the depiction of the Asian ME, Morris, and the godawful purple prose description of Eve and Roarke’s sex life, but thankfully the latter only lasted a paragraph or two at a time and there were maybe three such “scenes.” Go ahead,” he invited. “Take another shot. You needn’t worry. I don’t hit women – or murder them.” (p. 189). I personally didn’t like Roarke AT ALL and certainly for at least the first 3 maybe 5 books, I was reading for Eve alone. (I was vaguely hoping she’d throw him over for the cute M.E.)

I’m honestly a bit torn on the world building. I thought it had a very light touch, which I liked, but there were little bits of it where I wasn’t sure how they fit together or sort of how plausible they were. Maybe this is just my English stereotypes coming to the fore, but I really can’t imagine America banning guns within fifty years. I guess I self-define as a man who does not resort to violence to solve his problems, so I don’t see why women need a separate sub-clause. Basically the circumstances in which I’d hit a woman are exactly the same as the circumstances in which I’d hit a man: self-defence, sparring and extreme vengeance because they’d like murdered my brother or something (and, even then, I’d probably actually just go to the police). Again, I’m very unfamiliar with either crime fiction or romantic suspense but I have a vague sense that serial killers are sort of the norm. Although I suppose it’s particularly bizarre in this series if the thirty seven books only cover three years of Eve’s life.mix of sarin and sulfur trioxide (drugged, then convinced to handle improperly sealed nerve gas egg) They end up making love and it’s unlike anything either has ever experienced before, totally consuming them (148).

So who is J.D. Robb? Well, she’s Nora Roberts, of course. J.D. Robb is her nom de plume which she used for this series as she and Berkley (one of her publishers) decided to publish the works so that they have no relation to Nora Roberts and her storytelling style. So, though we know it is the same person, this series is essentially the work of a completely different author.Eve interviews the victim's neighbors and then visits Sharon's exclusive beauty salon ( Paradise Salon), where she meets Sebastian, Sharon's stylist. Eve learns that Sharon was at odds with her family, especially her grandfather, the senator. The senator was trying to make prostitution illegal, and opposed the gun ban. Sebastian last saw Sharon two days ago, when he prepared her for her date with Roarke, to whom she was very attracted (15). I absolutely agree that you shouldn’t use violence of any form to enforce your will on another human being, regardless of gender.