Recently on one
of my reviews in this series, Jerry House mentioned in a comment that there
were also novellas. I had seen something to that effect before, but had not
gone looking. Jerry’s comment got me looking in the Dallas Library system where
I found a few bundled together in groups of three. Three in Death
is one of those bundled novella collections.
It contains the novellas titled, Interlude in Death, Midnight
in Death, and Haunted in Death.
It is the spring
of 2059 as Interlude in Death opens and Lieutenant Eve Dallas of
the NYPSD is unhappily off planet. Even worse than the fact she is off planet,
something she does not like at all, is the
fact that she has been ordered to give a seminar on murder at the
Interplanetary Law Enforcement and Security Conference. It is being held at the
Olympus Resort in a hotel owned by her husband. She isn’t happy at all about
any of it. Though, as she grudgingly admits, the resort does have some perks.
One of those is the fact that her husband, Roarke, is with her and has some
tricks to help her mood.
Peabody and a
number of other coworkers are also in attendance. So too is the legendary
former commander Douglas R. Skinner. Within a few minutes of meeting him, it is
clear that Skinner is going after her husband. He foolishly wanted the help of
Dallas. Predictably, that went nowhere. One
knows a murder will soon happen.
The reader is
not disappointed as soon one of the men in Skinner’s detail is very much dead. Dallas
is off planet and out of her jurisdiction, and quite possibly a suspect, but
that is not going to stop her from working the case.
Midnight in
Death
is next and opens on Christmas morning. It was supposed to be their first
Christmas together. Instead of being home with her husband and taking a much-needed
break after a recent brutal case, she is standing over a body before dawn in
the below freezing cold.
The very dead
body at her feet is Judge Harold Wainger. He is naked and was dumped in the
center of the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. It is clear he has been on ice
for quite some time. It is also clear he was beaten and tortured extensively before
he died.
A cryptic note
and a list of those he plans to also torture and kill was left with the body.
David Palmer is back in town and up to his old ways. So much for having him
locked away for his previous savage crimes. It would have been nice if those in
charge at the prison had alerted Dallas that he had escaped their custody. He
is back and Dallas is in a race to find him as he keeps grabbing folks on the
list despite all her security efforts.
It is January
2060 as Haunted in Death begins and Dallas is in a cold room in a
derelict and abandoned building. She is with Peabody at the site of another
murder. Radcliff C. Hopkins III is very
much dead thanks to being shot multiple times by a gun of some type. While guns
are outlawed, there are still some around and clearly one was at work here. So
too was rage.
He is a grandson
of a legendary rock and roll family that made its fortune and name back in the
late 60s. Legend has it that the
grandfather overdosed in the building that housed his club. Legend has it that
the building is very much haunted. “Number Twelve” is a disaster for anyone who
ever tries to live or run a business out of the building. Now his grandson is
dead on the floor in a room of the old building.
Lieutenant Dallas
does not believe in the paranormal. In the here and now of January 2060 she is
going to go through some things in that building that just might make her
rethink her stance. One thing that she is sure of is that ghosts don’t kill
people. Flesh and blood real people do and she has a living killer to catch.
The three reads in this Three in Death collection are all good ones. Fun novellas, they more quickly and entertain the reader. While not as quite as complicated as full-length books, all three are fairly complicated, and are well worth your time.
My reading copy
came via the Overdrive/Libby App of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple
©2023
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