FFB Review: Calculated in Death: In Death Series by J.D. Robb

It is mid November 2060 as Calculated in Death begins and Lieutenant Eve Dallas is once again standing over a body. It is after 2 in the morning on a November night just before Thanksgiving. Dallas and Detective Peabody have been summoned to a certain short stairway that leads to a lower-level apartment. The female body is tucked down in the stairway where it can’t be seen. The lower-level apartment is vacant and being rehabbed.

 

The unit belongs to a man by the name of Bradley Whitestone. He and his date for the evening, Alva Moonie, had been out for dinner, had a few drinks at the bar, and Whitestone had brought her by so that she could see the apartment. They never made it inside as they found the dead woman first.

 

The deceased is 46-year-old Marta Dickenson who worked for an accounting firm located eight blocks away. The place where the body was found may or may not have been on the route to her home. It strikes both Peabody and Dallas that she did not die by fall. She is also tucked away in a corner making it even harder to see her. Why would a mugger care?

 

As it turns out Whitestone is one of three partners in a financial consulting company known as The WIN Group. Whitestone, Ingersol, and Newton,. own the entire building and quite a few other properties. They are not at Roarke’s level of wealth, but then again, very few are and they are doing pretty well in their own right.

 

Whitestone owns the entire lower unit and intends to live in that unit with The WIN Group taking over the first and second floors of the building. It isn’t long before Dallas and Peabody are in the unit and find blood. Testing soon confirms it came from Marta Dickenson. The vacant unit was the actual murder scene before she was dumped outside on the stairwell.

 

As Dallas starts digging into Dickenson’s employer as well as The WIN Group, the killings continue. Somebody isn’t going to stop until Dallas, Peabody, and the team put an end to it.

 

Billed as the 36th book in the series, Calculated in Death, is another fast and engaging read. Part romance and part police procedural one knows their will one head hopping pov, abrupt scene shifts, and all the usual quibbles. One also knows that soon none of that will matter as the engaging story pulls one along at a rapid pace.

 

The Amazon Associates deal is acting up again so please go here to pick up the book.

 

My reading copy came by way of the Libby/Overdrive app and the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2024