Apprentice in Death

Starred review from July 11, 2016
At the start of bestseller Robb’s exceptional 43rd Eve Dallas thriller set in a near-future New York City (after Brotherhood in Death), three ice skaters are shot dead at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Adding to the difficulty of the murder investigation is the weapon used—a tactical laser rifle with a range up to two miles. Eve’s team swings into action, as does tech-genius husband Roarke, in an effort to locate the firing site and to determine whether all the victims were random or one or more were targeted. On discovering the sniper nest, they realize that there are two people responsible for the shooting, and there will be more attacks; the second soon follows in Times Square, where four people die, including a cop. Feverish police work manages to identify the killers—a mentor and his trainee—and the race is on to stop them. Robb is in peak form as she blends intense action and clever twists with a stellar cast headed by the indomitable Lt. Eve Dallas. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House.

Lt. Eve Dallas, of the New York Police Security Department, celebrates January 2061 by tangling with an unusually well-organized mass murderer. Make that murderers.There are actually two people behind the sniper killings of three skaters at Central Park's Wollman Rink. The older of them lays plans, gives directions, and sets a limit on the number of targets; the younger one, after briefly arguing for more victims, obediently pulls the trigger. When a New York cop is among the five fatalities in a second shooting spree in Times Square, the case becomes more personal. Eve, who, in an improbable but satisfying bit of detective work, has already located the East Side hotel room where the killers set up shop for the first round, now theorizes that most of the victims are camouflage for the targets they really wanted to hit. Unlike real-life spree shootings, which are depressingly resistant to such neat and tidy explanations, these two episodes, and a third, even more bloody massacre outside Madison Square Garden, fit Eve's bill exactly, and it's a real pleasure watching her identify and track down the mastermind and his apprentice. At that point, however, the breathlessly paced story seems to run out of steam, and the last movement, in which Eve plays legalistic games with the two perps she's captured--the only truly memorable characters here apart from the heroine--to ensure that both of them will remain in prison for the longest possible sentences, seems a mite overlong itself.Not much state-of-the-fantasy-art high-tech this time, and no wonder: shaken readers will instantly recognize the contemporary American landscape, filled with trigger-happy vigilantes and the firepower they need to make themselves famous, beneath the futuristic trappings. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
What is the motive? When a long-distance serial killer (LDSK) begins targeting victims in New York City, NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas, last seen in Devoted in Death (2015), believes that the killer must have a reason for targeting her city. If she can figure that out, and why the sniper is selecting his victims, she knows she can ultimately find him. Eve gets her first big break in the case when her husband, billionaire businessman Roarke, creates a computer model that helps narrow down the spot from which the sniper first began his murderous spree. Once Eve finds the killer's nest, however, she is in for a surprise, since it seems there isn't just one shooter but two: a master sniper and an apprentice being trained in the cold-blooded business of murder. With more than 42 books in her popular Eve Dallas series, Robb (pseudonym for best-selling Nora Roberts) shows no sign of literary fatigue as she delivers to her multitude of fans another polished thriller containing her signature mix of high-stakes suspense and sexy romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)