CSI: 2059

Conspiracy in Death by J.D. Robb

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I picked this up in the library because of the character and the setting: Eve Dallas, a tough cop in post-apocalyptic New York City, 2059. Eve had been an abused child who ended up killing her rapist father before losing her memory and being given a new identity. Pretty heady stuff for a beginning. What it turned out to be, though, was more like a futuristic CSI--a show that is watched by millions of people, but which I dislike. In the hands of a better writer, such as Jennifer Pelland, this novel could have rocked. Robb, however, is what she is.

Here are a couple of reasons why the book was disappointing. First, J.D. Robb (or Nora Roberts) simply writes too much. Probably 20 percent of the book could have been edited out. It is as if every idea the author has must be written out completely. Second, Eve's husband Roark is simply too perfect. He is not only the best-looking man in the known universe, he is also the richest, as well as being the best computer hacker, lock picker, and lover. Third, Robb's sex scenes are more appropriate for Roberts' fat romance novels. There is entirely too much arching, burning, and going over edges. This tendency to juxtapose stylistic sex with realistic murder and mayhem just doesn't work. Nor does her tendency to switch points of view between paragraphs work literarily. Toni Morrison, in Song of Solomon shows us that this technique is possible; in Robb, it seems like an unedited mistake.

Here are a couple of facts about Nora Roberts. She writes 8 hours a day, no matter where she is. She has written over 200 novels, which may or may not include the 45 "In Death" novels under her Robb pseudonym. Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, wrote one.

Too much writing, too little editing. Still,give this one a 2.3 or so and go on to something better.



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