Review : Naked in Death
Author: J.D. Robb
Genre: Crime
Published: 1995
I recently discovered the "In Death" series by J.D.Robb (or Nora Roberts), and pretty much enjoyed the first book among the 67 books. I know, there are so many books in the series, and J.D.Robb is really an amazing and prolific writer. I read one comment on Good Reads that "the books are going to keep me busy for the next 20 years".
In this book, we follow the main character Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a crime investigating police officer in 2058 NYC. The book carries a mixed atmosphere of futuristic and nostalgic. Many depictions of the future about bots and voice controls do not feel so distant when reading it now. The apartments and interior spaces shown in the book reminds me of varies apartments in Cyberpunk 2077, from low end to high end. I played the game for so long now when reading this book I have a good visualization of the space.
In addition to mystery and crime, the book does follows Eve's romantic relationship with Roarke, the one-in-all perfect book boyfriend anyone can ask for. I like how their relationship is going to develop and grow when the series progress (spoil alert: for example they are getting married between book 3 and 4 off scene).
As the first book in the series, the crime story in Naked in Death is quite disturbing and dark.It is definitely outside of my comfort zone, and I wish nobody ever face such things. But real life IS quite dark. Robb is a good narrator, and the story does comes with twists and turns.
Overall I have good faith in this series and I am already on the second book Glory in Death when I'm writing this. The book had so many editions, and for this post I just chose a cover that stood out to me. There are going to be 2 new books for the "In Death" series in 2026, and 2 more books being released under the name of Nora Roberts. The story of Roberts writing as Robb and nobody knew until several books later is very interesting as well.