I really wavered between giving this book three and four stars. On the upside, the murder mystery itself--which was about people who committed suicide after essentially being "controlled" by virtual reality games that had been tailored to their brain patterns--definitely held my interest more than some of the other mystery plots. This one kept me interested as much for the plot and the ideas as for the character development. The way that the "mind-control" seeped into Roarke's and Eve's personal lives was also fascinating, if not a little appalling.

Once again, I pinned the murderer before Eve did, but that's because I understand J.D. Robb's formula, an advantage that Eve living it doesn't have. So that's not what would have bumped this book down to three stars. Instead, it's the fact that there were a lot of suspects who were doing sort of shady/mysterious things even though they weren't revealed to be the masterminds behind the murders--but that those threads were never really followed-through or tied up. It almost felt as though J.D. Robb forgot that she had brought them up. If these things get resolved in later books, this criticism will be moot; but that doesn't really seem to be the way this series works. The characters continue to develop, but "plot" story arcs don't really carry from one book to the next. Also, I don't like the way that Eve and her associates continuously get away with things that are slightly less-than-legal just because "the ends justify the means" or because she happens to be the main character. But despite my qualms about the way she sometimes does her job, I do still love Eve Dallas.