Title: Survivor in Death Series: In Death
Author: J.D. Robb
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: February 1, 2005
Publisher: Berkley
ASIN: B000OIZSGE
The only thing that kept young Nixie Swisher from suffering the same fate as her parents, brother, housekeeper, and young sleepover companion was the impulsive nine-year-old's desire for an illicit orange fizzy at 2 a.m. Taking the bereft girl under her wing, Eve is determined to make sure the killers don't get the chance to finish their lethal job. From the first, however, the investigation is baffling. The Swishers were a nice family, living on the Upper West Side in a house with an excellent security system. Ordinary almost to a fault, they seemed unlikely victims for this carefully planned and executed crime. Valuables at the scene were left untouched, there was no sign of vandalism—just the corpses of five people murdered in their sleep.
My rating:
An ordinary, happy, nice and "clean" family, is killed in their sleep, their throats slashed. The only survivor is the nine-year-old daughter who escaped by a miracle in the form of the thirst for an orange fizzy, while her best friend, having a sleepover was killed in her stead.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas takes little Nixie into her home, hoping to somehow jog her memory as to what secrets her parents or her brother might have had to earn such a death, but nothing pops. It looks like a random, senseless killing...But why?
The first half was spot-on, as always. The mystery was intriguing, the suspense palpable, the pace fast, and adding to the (again) non-existent personal drama was little nine-year-old Nixie, only survivor and witness of the killing of her family.
Some people argue that it would've been nice for Eve and Roarke to adopt the little girl in the end, when it seemed no one really wanted her, but to me, it's too soon for the two to become parents, adoptive or not. Neither is ready, not even Roarke, who actually wants children with Eve one day, and they know it. Still, it was a nice interlude.
It was the second part of the story that was the problem for me.
The motive turned out to be rather idiotic, slaughtering an entire family (and many others on the side) as revenge for a slight. I found it too simple and too over-the-top to compensate for the mystery/suspense at the beginning. It just didn't make sense to me, and in the end the pacing slowed down too much for me to actually enjoy the ending.
3 ½ stars
3 stars, bodyguard/military/merc/gov/cop/spy, Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, sci-fi/futuristic, suspense/mystery/adventure/thriller
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