Naked In Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

This is the first of 31 novels about Lt. Eve Dallas in which Nora Roberts writes under the pseudonym of J.D. Robb. I thought I had read a Nora Roberts book before, so it must have been pre-blog. I had seen an Amazon ad for the latest in the series, Indulgence in Death, released only this month, so I thought I would just start at the beginning in case I loved it and then could go through them in order. So, I went into this with some anticipation, hoping that I would find another series of books to go through, another character that I could get excited about, but it may not work out that way. In Naked in Death, written in 7/95, a serial killer must be brought to justice. I won’t spend more time on the plot because it was too predictable. The character development was average, at best. Really, I thought the main characters, Lt. Dallas and Roarke, the one-named, super wealthy, remarkably everything man with whom she falls in love, despite the fact that he is a suspect, and who treats her to the best sex ever – were just not believable figures. The setting is somewhere in the future, so there were some gimmicky communication devices, computer database options, and transportation methods – but even those could not disguise a thin plot. I nearly quit the book after 50 pages, and then considered quitting every 10 pages thereafter. The fact that I finished the book is only a tribute to my dysfunctional compulsive behaviors. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. Now, I’m undecided if I’m going to check out the latest, to see if Nora Roberts got better. She is one amazingly prolific writer. Now I ask, “What am I missing?”