Thursday, September 6, 2018

Review: Leverage in Death by J.D. Robb

Title: Leverage in Death
Series: In Death
Author: J.D. Robb
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: September 4, 2018
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ASIN: B078X1YCM2

For the airline executives finalizing a merger that would make news in the business world, the nine a.m. meeting would be a major milestone. But after marketing VP Paul Rogan walked into the plush conference room, strapped with explosives, the headlines told of death and destruction instead. The NYPSD’s Eve Dallas confirms that Rogan was cruelly coerced by two masked men holding his family hostage. His motive was saving his wife and daughter—but what was the motive of the masked men?

Despite the chaos and bad publicity, blowing up one meeting isn’t going to put the brakes on the merger. All it’s accomplished is shattering a lot of innocent lives. Now, with the help of her billionaire husband Roarke, Eve must untangle the reason for an inexplicable act of terror, look at suspects inside and outside both corporations, and determine whether the root of this crime lies in simple sabotage, or something far more complex and twisted.


My rating:

A man walks into a merger meeting and blows himself up, killing twelve people in the process. Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon moves the supposed murderer onto her victims list, since it looks like the man was threatened and coerced in executing the attack to protect his wife and daughter.
The attack doesn't smell of terrorism, but Eve's husband, Roarke, might have found the real motive. Money and stock trading.

Eve's gut tells her the perpetrators wouldn't stop at just one job. Not when the first one worked so nicely...Then a man walks into his own gallery and blows himself up, killing a rising artist in the process. The MO and the motive are the same—the man's family was threatened and the artist's work's value will increase.

The police is now running against the clock to find the real killers and prevent more leverage and more death.


Another compelling, gripping installment in this series. It started deceptively slow, but for the big bang, yet the peril and urgency were there, just out of reach in the sidelines, slowly increasing the tempo as the story moved forward, until that last sprint for the finish line.

I liked the detective work in this one. The plot itself truly had me guessing, floundering as much as the characters as they tried to uncover the motive and the perpetrators. The baddies were hard to spot, which I liked very much.

The cast of characters really feels like old friends by now and it's always a pleasure having these two visits per year. 😉
Reading their interactions, revisiting their relationships and connection feels like re-watching a favorite movie, but there are always new nuances coming to the fore, or hitches in the stride as if, even after all these books, they're still searching for their footing.
Realistic and organic, well-developed and nicely portrayed.

The action was rather subdued in this one, since it was mostly "remote" killing and searching for the baddies, but the final "battle" scene on the roof got the blood going. Intense and gripping, slightly scary...But it felt good.

The entire book felt good. And it felt more than good reading it.



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