RogerBW's Blog

Brotherhood in Death, J. D. Robb 02 August 2016

2016 SF/mystery; fifty-third (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Dennis Mira went to confront his cousin Edward over plans to sell the family house, but found him tied up in a chair; then someone knocked Dennis on the head. Now Edward's missing. Fortunately Dennis is married to Charlotte Mira, police profiler and friend of Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

Like Concealed in Death, this volume drops most of the science fiction of the setting to tell a conventional story of old deeds coming home to roost, and does it well. There's nothing in the core plot here which couldn't have been done in a contemporary setting, but this frees Robb to tell an effective story of police investigation with some SFnal trappings, and she seems much happier here than when she's working directly with high-tech ideas.

It's fairly rapidly clear roughly what's going on, once the corpses start to pile up, but the prime mover needs to be found and the story still needs to be documented to suitable standards of evidence. Rather than being just another nutcase, the villain has good (if arguably not sufficient) motivation and some actual personality: Dallas knows perfectly well that she has to catch this murderer for the benefit of everyone, but that needs to be reconciled with a strong sense that the victims "needed killing". Society or personal satisfaction? Well, if you've met Dallas before that won't be in doubt, but the process of getting there is still well-observed. Even this far into the series, there are still new things to say about Dallas.

The massive cast of series regulars is not particularly visible here: we get a bit more time with the Miras, and several of the usual secondary characters get their turn on stage, but there's no great effort being made to squeeze everyone in for a name-check. That's probably the sensible way to do it.

Yes, this series is somewhat formulaic, but that formula doesn't control the shape of the story; any long-running narrative about the same characters will inevitably repeat itself in parts just as the characters would.

There's little reason to start this series anywhere but the beginning, but I suppose you could begin here; it's not hard to work out what's going on, but you'll miss the history.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Wonderment in Death | Series: In Death | Next in series: Apprentice in Death

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1