Portrait in Death

Portrait in Death J.D. Robb Grade: A- Sensuality: Hot

Portrait in Death is my sixth DIK in J.D. Robb's In Death series. I haven't reviewed all six yet, but I will continue to blog about them, in order, until I'm all J.D. Robb'd out. What makes this one particularly terrific is the combination of the the suspense, the romance, and the relationships. Eve and Roarke go through the wringer, and Eve's not sure they'll make it out as a couple on the other end. Well, that's what happens when you don't communicate, isn't it? Oh so occasionally Roarke does a clueless man thing, and when he does, the repercussions are devastating to Eve.

The book begins with Eve ecstatic that Summerset is about to take his bony ass out of the mansion and go on vacation. That is, until he trips over Galahad and ends up an invalid instead. If that weren't bad enough, somebody's begun to murder young, vibrant, and innocent men and women, photographing them post-mortem, and sending the images - and letters - to ace reporter Nadine, who brings her friend Eve onto the scene to investigate. But wait...there's more. While touring Dochas, the shelter Roarke built for battered women and children, Louise Dimatto introduces him to an Irishwoman who informs him that the nasty woman he'd thought was his mother was in fact not his mother. His sweet and innocent young mother had actually been murdered by his father, who simply pretended she'd never existed. As you might expect, this sort of news isn't easy to digest, and rather than talk it over with Eve, he lets it sit inside his psyche and fester.

As a result, he picks fights with Summerset and distances himself from Eve, who begins to think he no longer loves her. The two dance warily around each other for quite a while until Eve finally, physically, forces a reaction from Roarke. It's an intensely gripping scene. She provokes him, he yells that he doesn't want her around, and then...

"Go ahead." He closed his eyes. Raged had passed, leaving him raw and empty. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Not going to hurt me?" She lifted his head an inch by the hair, then let it thump on the floor. "You're tired of me, don't want me around, want to shake me loose, and you're not going to hurt me?"
"Tired of you?" He opened his eyes and saw for the first time that hers weren't simply angry. Tears sparkled in them. "Where the hell do you get these things? I never said that. I've a great deal on my mind. Nothing that has to do with you."
He saw her face, the ripple of hurt that had her flinching as though he'd slapped her. Then she shut it down, so that her eyes went dry, went flat as she sat back on her heels.

Oops...dumb man moment. Extremely dumb man moment. But Roarke's smart enough to realize the error of his ways, and he clues Eve in. And tells her, "I couldn't fall out of love with you if I fell all the way to hell." Can't you just hear the Irish in his voice? Things improve, but he decides to go to Ireland to meet his mother's family - and doesn't tell Eve until it's too late for her to join him. In Ireland he meets up with one of his old bar mates . The two pay a visit to one of his father's old partners in crime, and in a scene that I will never forget, the Roarke that's hidden beneath the smooth veneer comes out as he "questions" the man about his father, his mother, and her murder. We've glimpsed this Roarke before, but never experienced the full, raw deal. We've also rarely seen an insecure Roarke, but he isn't sure of the reception he'll get from his mother's people. A vulnerable Roarke is as powerful as a vulnerable Eve.

Obviously there's a great deal more to this book than those moments, but the power in them is undeniable, and there's another one, later on, when Eve meets his mother's twin. Then too, the mystery plays itself out in a suitably creepy manner, even if it is interrupted by Eve's putting her marriage before the job for a short while.

The scenes with Summerset are terrific as well. Roarke hires a nurse to care for him at the mansion while he recovers from his injuries, with predictably unpleasant results. Even visits from Mavis don't seem to help his disposition much, but a lot of comic relief comes from those scenes, as well as a good amount of pathos when Roarke takes his anger out on Summerset...then works to make things right again.

Officer Trueheart once again takes on a pivotal role. He was the first officer on the scene in Purity in Death, and injured as a result. His experiences in Portrait in Death are more riveting, but he's turning out to have deeper reserves than I'd expected. Turns out Baxter's a pretty good trainer, perhaps not as good as Eve has been with Peabody, but that Trueheart's got a good head on his shoulders.

It's hard to imagine the series getting any better than this, but I know it does. Which book is as great as this one? Stay tuned.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit