Secrets in Death

July 3, 2017
At the start of bestseller Robb’s entertaining 45th novel set in a near-future New York City (after Echoes in Death), homicide cop Eve Dallas is having a drink at Du Vin, a lower Manhattan bar owned by her entrepreneur husband, Roarke, when gossip reporter Larinda Mars staggers in her direction. Eve catches the woman, whose right sleeve is soaked in blood, as she collapses, but despite almost immediate medical help, Mars dies. The subsequent police interviews with staff and patrons reveal only that the killer, probably male, exited the bar right after slicing Mars’s brachial artery. Eve soon discovers that Mars was heavily into blackmail; the list of potential suspects includes everyone from Mets star third baseman Wylee Stamford to talk show queen Annie Knight. Robb fleshes out the main action with such tantalizing puzzles as the reason for Mars’s extensive plastic surgery and the location of the hidey-hole she must have kept. Robb continues to impress with her ability to make the same murder mystery formula fresh. 750,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House.

July 1, 2017
Lt. Eve Dallas (Echoes in Death, 2017, etc.) investigates the murder of a gossip columnist whose death answers a thousand prayers.Eve's already-fraught meeting with irritating forensic anthropologist Dr. Garnet DeWinter at the fashionable watering hole Du Vin turns abruptly worse when a woman staggers out of the ladies' room and bleeds out under her eyes. The victim, self-styled social information reporter Larinda Mars, had dirt on just about everyone who mattered--including, as it awkwardly turns out, the owner of Du Vin, who just happens to be Roarke, Eve's billionaire husband--and wasn't shy about digging under every rock and paying off or blackmailing possible informants for more. So although several witnesses and the security cameras so ubiquitous in 2061 swiftly identify a likely suspect, it's impossible to distinguish that well-muffled figure from dozens of other wannabe Mars-slayers. Following their noses, Eve and her partner, Detective Amelia Peabody, focus on three of Larinda's marks: talk screen queen Annie Knight, baseball star Wylee Stamford, and teenage actress Missy Lee Durante. Larinda was indeed blackmailing them all over secrets worth killing to preserve, sparking the moral outrage Eve's never shy about revealing on behalf of blackmail victims "mostly trying to protect loved ones as much, maybe more, than themselves." But the nominal victim's insatiably feral nature makes it hard to work up an equal level of outrage over her murder or to feel much of a sense of closure when Eve plucks the perp from a crowded field of suspects who would all have been perfectly within their rights in shutting down the blackmail factory by fair means or foul. The 45th entry in this fleet, easy-reading series provides a dramatic opening scene, a second act guaranteed to raise your most self-righteous hackles, and a denouement even Robb must have recognized as an anticlimax.

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April 1, 2017

Gossip reporter Larinda Mars has been murdered at a way-too-cool Manhattan nightspot called Du Vin, and Lt. Eve Dallas is dismayed to learn that her dislikable victim kept her worse secrets from her column, instead using them for blackmail. The latest in Robb's "In Death" series, optioned for TV; with a national laydown on September 5.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2017
Someone finally found a permanent way to silence gossip reporter Larinda Mars: they murdered her. Unfortunately, Larinda's killer didn't realize that NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas was at the same upscale wine bar in which Larinda whispered her last salacious secret. Larinda might have liked to style herself a social information reporter, but Eve quickly discovers she was nothing but a mercenary gossip who had been blackmailing an A-list of New York's movers and shakers. Now, with the help of her professional crew and her husband, Roarke, Eve must sift through her list of suspects to find out which one of them finally got tired of paying Larinda hush money. It is no secret that Robb's Eve Dallas series continues to be one of the most popular brands in crime fiction. Add that to this installment's perfectly executed plot, snappy pacing, and judicious sprinkling of dry humor, and you have a particularly enjoyable treat for loyal fans and curious new readers alike.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With an initial run of 750,000 copies and copious publicity, Robb's new Eve Dallas title will be heavily requested.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)