Remember When

Remember When J.D. Robb Grade: C+ Sensuality: Warm

Remember When is a two-in-one release. Part I, penned as Nora Roberts, involves a present day romantic suspense story involving the theft of a large number of diamonds. In Part II, written as J.D. Robb, Lieutenant Eve Dallas investigates the murder of a woman taking care of a friend's apartment. That friend is none other than the granddaughter of a suspect in the diamond heist, and it doesn't take Eve long to determine that, 50 years later, somebody's after the missing diamonds, and has no problem committing cold-blooded murder to find them.

I didn't read Part I because both parts are said to be totally self-contained. It's possible that I did myself a disservice in bypassing the Nora Roberts segment in order to get to the J.D. Robb, but I'm willing to live with that. Perhaps if I'd liked the Robb better, I'd have been inclined to at least peruse the Roberts, but for me it was one of the series' disappointments. Compared to the mysteries in most other In Death books, this one was too pedestrian. Preventing the Statue of Liberty from blowing up or discovering the identity of somebody killing and photographing vibrant and innocent young people in order to preserve that youth is what I want Eve to be involved in - not solving a diamond theft, even if the murderer had his moments that were way up there on the e-v-i-l chart.

Even if the mystery didn't work for me, as always, the characters and relationships did. Summerset is still on vacation, so Eve and Roarke go at it on the stairs. In an earlier blogging I wrote that even though most J.D. Robb love scenes are not explicit, the depth of emotion in them makes them seem hotter than they are. That's true here; Roarke, a gazillionaire who has everything and could have any woman/women he wants, wants Eve. "The more he had of her, the more he craved in an endless cycle of love and lust and longing. He could live with whatever had come before, whatever would come after, as long as there was Eve."

Peabody is now a detective - and Eve's partner. She's pretty damn hilarious in this story. She wears several different get-ups now that she's no longer in uniform, because she's trying to find her "style". What's more, she continues to delight in screwing with Eve's head by detailing her love life with McNab - or behaving like a hormonal teen with him in front of her partner, whose ears I really do expect to start bleeding one day as a result of Peabody's carrying on.

Eve begins to think that her case and one being worked by Baxter and Trueheart - the murder of another woman - are connected. She joins the investigations, which allows for extra screen time for Baxter, which I enjoyed.

I went into Remember When extremely excited as it had earned DIK status at AAR. But the book is more of a placemark in the series than anything else. It's not bad by any means - but due to the mundane nature of the crime, it's merely a tad over average.

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