PAYBACK IN DEATH

 

PAYBACK IN DEATH

By J.D. Robb

St. Martin’s Press

358 pages

 

The setting is the future in which mankind has gone out to the stars and colonized other planets. Meanwhile, back on good old Terra Firma, crime still exist which is what keeps New York City Homicide Detective Eve Dallas hopping. In this particular tale, she and her new husband are only just back from their honeymoon when she is called to investigate the murder of a former police officer; Captain Martin Greenleaf. Upon arriving at the scene, Eve discovers the killer, having shot the retired chief, then attempted to make it appear as if Greenleaf had shot himself. Whereas Eve quickly sees through the subterfuge clearly recognizing the flimsy scenario for what it is.

But why try to disguise it as a suicide? It also doesn’t help her case that Greenleaf, while an active cop, was the head of the Internal Affairs Department and, during his lengthy career, he put away lots of crooked cops. Thus the list of possible suspects is a long one indeed. Dallas realizes the only way she’ll ever solve the case is to meticulous go through all of Greenleaf’s past files. Somewhere in them is the identity of his killer. In other words good old fashion, tedious, boring, police work. 

This is our first encounter with J.D. Robb and we found the first half of “Payback in Death” slow going. Granted the lengthy set-up is necessary, but at the same time not overly conducive to turning the pages. Thankfully the story does shift into a faster pace by the second half as Eve begins to rely more and more on her gut instincts. We should mention this book is part of a series and loyal readers will most likely appreciate reconnecting with her eclectic supporting cast. Whereas they were all strangers to this reviewer and we kept our focus on the mystery. 

In the end, Robb does balance a stogy police procedural with a deft look into how effective detectives employ a basic knowledge of both psychology and criminal law merging the two to conform to the age old truism; people only kill for one of two reasons, love or money. Now let’s see if you can figure out which one before Eve Dallas does.