Review: Forgotten in Death by J.D. Robb

Forgotten in Death (In Death, #53) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, eboook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, thriller
Series: In Death #53
Pages: 384
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 7, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In the latest novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, homicide detective Eve Dallas sifts through the wreckage of the past to find a killer.

The body was left in a dumpster like so much trash, the victim a woman of no fixed address, known for offering paper flowers in return for spare change―and for keeping the cops informed of any infractions she witnessed on the street. But the notebook where she scribbled her intel on litterers and other such offenders is nowhere to be found.

Then Eve is summoned away to a nearby building site to view more remains―in this case decades old, adorned with gold jewelry and fine clothing―unearthed by recent construction work. She isn’t happy when she realizes that the scene of the crime belongs to her husband, Roarke―not that it should surprise her, since the Irish billionaire owns a good chunk of New York. Now Eve must enter a complex world of real estate development, family history, shady deals, and shocking secrets to find justice for two women whose lives were thrown away…

My Review:

While I fully admit that I’ve been planning to read this since the minute I finished the previous book in the series (Faithless in Death, which was one of the truly EXCELLENT entries in the series), I picked this up over the Labor Day weekend because I was having a difficult time getting stuck into a book and I knew that, even if this was just an average book in the series – which I have to say that it was – I would still have no difficulties whatsoever getting immersed (again) in this world and these characters. Which turned out to be completely, totally and utterly true, as it always does.

I even finished this before yesterday’s book, but that left me so sad that I didn’t want to end the week on such a down note. So here we are with Forgotten in Death. Not that Eve Dallas ever forgets any of the murder victims that she stands for, even after she gets the justice they are due.

As usual with this series, the story begins with a body. A dead body poorly concealed in a dumpster near a construction site. It seems that, in death as well as in life, someone saw Alva Quirk as trash and threw her away.

But this site isn’t through with Eve Dallas yet, as she gets called to another body in the midst of New York City cleaning up the shoddy construction hastily erected in the aftermath of the Urban Wars that are not that many years from now in the alternate timeline of Eve’s world.

Or at least we hope it’s an alternate timeline. Because if it isn’t, the bad years are coming up really fast.

The second body is the opposite of the first. This victim was at least upper middle-class based on the items found with her. She was at least 20 years younger than the first victim, probably more. And she was very, very pregnant at the time of her death.

Which was nearly 40 years ago, just at the time that all of the buildings now being demolished were first and hastily built. And the site that she was found in now belongs to, of course, Eve’s mega-rich husband Roarke.

But he didn’t, and couldn’t have, owned it when that young woman and her viable baby were entombed. He would have been all of 2 years old or thereabouts, and in Ireland at the time. Roarke may be an overachiever in a whole lot of ways, but not THAT much.

Because the long arm of coincidence isn’t nearly that long, at the time each murder happened, and it was definitely murder in both cases, what are now two building sites were one, both owned by the same company, Singer Family Developers. Singer still owns the site where Quirk was found, and the main players in the company from the earlier murder are all still alive and more or less active in it.

And entirely too involved and interested in covering up whatever happened all those years ago.

Escape Rating B: Forgotten in Death is a solid – and solidly enjoyable – entry in this long-running series. As plenty of reviewers have said, one of the things I look forward to every year are the Spring and Fall updates to the world of Dallas and Roarke. So even when the story doesn’t break any new ground – and this one doesn’t – it’s always a good reading time and it’s always great to see what the gang is up to.

One of the things I love about this series is the way that the world is set up. The first book in the series, Naked in Death, was published in 1995, when I was also in my 30s, just as Eve and Roarke were at the time. In 1995, the 2058 setting of the series seemed an impossibly long time away.

And yet it isn’t. Eve’s world doesn’t move as fast as ours, so 50+ books in Eve’s world have only moved the time needle three years forward to 2061. Her world is still far enough in the future that many things are different, while close enough to our time that many things are still the same. Also 2021 is near enough in their rear-view mirror that plenty of people actually remember the time we’re living in right now.

Part of the charm of this series, in addition to the ever-present romance between Dallas and Roarke, is the cop shop vibe of Eve’s Homicide Division of NYPSD. Over the books in the series we’ve gotten to know all the people in Eve’s ever-growing circle of friends, colleagues and frenemies so it’s always fun to see how everyone is doing. And how everyone pulls together when the chips are down.

So even when the case isn’t all that fascinating, I still love this peek into Eve’s world.

Speaking of the case, this one is all about real estate chicanery and family legacies – and just how a family that thinks it’s cut from a finer bit of silk than the rest of us covers up it’s less than savory shenanigans – and shenanigators.

Because all of the real estate, let’s call them irregularities, go back a century – in other words to the 1960s – and because some of the scions of the family have been less than stellar representatives of it, I kind of got the feeling that the author might have been venting some spleen at the long term shady dealings of a family of former high-level government officials. Or at least I got that vibe and enjoyed that vibe very much. I’m totally speculating about the author’s feelings on the matter. Plenty of New York City real estate history – and other history – is filled with people and families who dealt on both sides of the law.

So that part was fun but not deep. But speaking of deep, I really enjoyed the research and historical digging involved both in determining the identity of the long-buried victim and in getting some much overdue justice for the circumstances that eventually put Alva Quirk into that dumpster.

And it’s always great to catch up with the gang. Including Eve’s word-salad descriptions of Detective Jenkinson’s horrendously clashing ties. They always give me a giggle. So I’ll be back in the spring for the next book in this series, Abandoned in Death. I already can’t wait!

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