J is for (Books About) Justice #atozchallenge

For A to Z 2018, my theme is Books About ____. If you’re stopping by from your own A to Z blog, feel free to leave a link. If you need help with how to do that, you can look here.

If you’re someone looking to read a lot of great blogs, here’s the link for the A to Z challenge.

I love a good crime thriller. Bonus points if it probes questions of right and wrong, of justice vs. law. (Because sometimes those things aren’t the same.) Here’s a list of some books about justice that I love.

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (literary): I only read this a few years ago, and I’m so mad that my school didn’t require it. It’s a fantastic story about the child of a lawyer, and how she follows the case of a black man accused of raping a young woman. It’s got all those interesting layers of questions about right and wrong, the way people’s assumptions influence how they think about the world, all filtered through the eyes of an interesting child. And it’s actually enjoyable to read.

A Time To Kill, by John Grisham (crime thriller): When his 10-year-old daughter is raped by white men and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be justice, Carl Lee (a black man) kills them. Everyone hates pedophiles, and so it’s easy for most of us to understand why a father would kill the animals who hurt his daughter like that. This book is a fascinating thrill ride, complete with interesting drama both in and out of the courtroom. It made me think about what justice looks like in a situation like this, and if justice even exists.

Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow (crime thriller): The movie was good, but the book was better. Rusty is trying to solve the mystery of who killed Carolyn, the coworker he was having an affair with. When the affair comes out, he’s accused of the murder. The twist at the end was amazing. I read this book as a teenager, and I still think about it from time to time.

In Death books, by JD Robb (sci-fi crime thriller): This is a 40+ book series, starting with Naked In Death. It’s 2059, and Eve Dallas is a homicide cop in New York City. She hunts down bad guys and sometimes dispenses her own brand of justice. Each book is a self-contained “murder of the week” along with amazing character development and often interesting subplots about Dallas’s friends and family. She has a rigid definition of right and wrong, and it’s always interesting to see her go up against other characters, both personally and professionally, who have more flexible morals. While you don’t have to start at the beginning, I definitely would. It’s fun to watch how Dallas grows and changes.

I really like crime novels and crime shows, so this list could go on and on and on. But I made myself keep it relatively short. What books about justice do you love?

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I is for In Death

JD Robb has written 53 books in the In Death series in the past 21 years.  That’s a huge number of books.  (Some of these are novellas that appear in anthologies, but it’s still impressive.)

The books center around Eve Dallas, a police lieutenant in the New York Police Department, and her husband Roarke, multi-billionare businessman and former criminal. There are also multiple supporting characters that make regular appearances.

Each book centers around one or more murder that Dallas must solve.  As the series has continued, Roarke assists her more and more often.

I love reading these books, but I’ve also started studying them from a writer’s perspective.  If you’d ask me, I would have told you I didn’t think that a character arc could span over 53+ books, but I would have been wrong.

Dallas and Roarke have continued to develop, as a couple and as individuals.  Though the focus tends to be on them and their relationship, the other characters in the universe are interesting and often experience character growth of their own.  I love the fact that a married couple can continue to be the subject of a series; too often the curtain drops just after the wedding, but that’s not real life.  They argue, they compromise, they have past lovers, and yet they navigate it together.

Each story shares characteristics, but they’re not formulaic.   There are multiple series subplots, like Dallas’s past, and information about these is doled out over time.  It’s masterful the way Robb keeps my interest in these subplots.  She drags them out for just the right amount of time so that they never get stale, but also never turn into an info dump.

The books are thrillers with elements of romance and science fiction, and while the science fiction might not please hard-core sci-fi fans, they’re always a good story.

More than anything, I want the stories I tell to be compelling and interesting.  I think that’s the best rule for any author: tell a good story.

“Life is never as long as we want it to be, and wasted time can never be recovered.”
― J.D. Robb

In Death, a Review

On Throwback Thursdays, I review older books.

The first “In Death” book was published in 1995, and #41 is scheduled to be released this fall.

Naked in Death is the first in the series, and it introduces Eve Dallas, a hard edged “murder cop” in New York City, circa 2058.  Dallas is the main character throughout the series.  Each book has her conducting at least one investigation into a murder.  In this first book, she must investigate the murder of a senator’s granddaughter.  She also meets Roarke, an Irish gazillionare with a secretive past.

The books have a little bit of everything: romance, mystery, intrigue.  Amazingly, JD Robb has not repeated the same story twice.  They’re new and interesting.

One of my favorite things about this series is that Dallas and Roarke get together over the course of several books and (spoiler alert) eventually marry.  However, we’re not left with a happily-ever-after romance book ending romance.  They argue like real married people, have conflicts, and continue to learn more and more about one another.

Dallas develops friendships and builds relationships, and some of these people stay a part of the world.  Her relationships with others are complex and interesting.  While you could pick up any book in the series and enjoy it, I think they’re much more enjoyable as part of a series.  The people within the pages of this book have become my friends; people I can root for and really enjoy seeing triumph.

Don’t get me wrong; all the characters have flaws.  But that makes them even more real and endearing to me.

If you like a little bit of everything, mixed up and tied together with a good murder mystery, this may be the series for you.

Calculated in Death- A Review

Calculated in Death (2013) is #45 in JD Robb’s In Death series, featuring my hero, Eve Dallas.

Dallas is everything a heroine should be: sharp, acerbic, vulnerable, interesting, fierce, and loyal.  I could go on with the adjectives, but you get the picture.

Yes, the books are predictable.  Dallas is a homicide lieutenant for New York Police Department in the year 2059.  She gets the toughest cases, and she’s always going to catch the killer… it goes without saying.  However, as I’m fond of saying… “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey,” and these books always have a great journey.

There’s romance, there’s action, there’s friendship.  The books have good, strong characters.  Dallas isn’t afraid to bed the rules sometimes, but she struggles every time she does, which is one of the things I like about her character.

If you’ve never read any of the books, I’d highly advise starting at the beginning, though you can really start with this one and catch on pretty fast.

An accountant is killed in what appears to be a botched mugging, but Dallas isn’t fooled, and suspects there’s a reason she was killed.  When she starts digging into the accountant’s work, she starts to put together a picture of fraud and money laundering.

It’s a super fast read, and lots of fun.  Happy reading!

Celebrity In Death- Book Review

Nora Roberts, aka JD Robb has done it for the 34th book in the In Death series.  Celebrity in Death follow Eve Dallas, Roarke, Peabody, and the rest of the cast as they investigate the death of an actress playing Peabody in a movie about the Icove case (from Origin in Death).

Roberts’s, aka Robb’s, characters are consistently interesting, likable, funny, and flawed.  They argue, they bicker, they support one another, just like real friends and family do.  Reading an In Death is like visiting old friends, except with murder.

If you’re a fan of the series, I recommend this book, two thumbs up.  If you’ve never read any of these books, you could start with this one, but I’d recommend starting from the beginning.  Around book 30 or so, I went back to the beginning and read them all straight through.  While it was interesting to see the growth of all the characters straight through, I was ready to put the books down toward the end.  It’s pretty much the same as having house guests; though I might love them, it’s time for them to go home after awhile.