Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsA little disappointing
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 18, 2020
There are times when JD Robb (and her doppelganger, Nora Roberts) is a lazy writer. This is one of them. By now, the default words leap off the page: places "boast" this or that amenity (the word was used twice in one paragraph); flowers "spear up", objects are "pretty". It's as if the author is writing on auto-pilot. In the early books, money in this futuristic society was replaced by credits, but in this outing we're back to cash. The breadcrumbs that allowed me to know within a few pages where to find the villain are missed by Eve, which is not entirely surprising, but also by Peabody, who is more attuned to common culture. I was also shocked that a stereotyped character was thrown into the mix: I believe this is the first time I saw "hooked nose" with a character named Abdul, and found it offensive. It was even more egregious when Robb takes such care to describe mixed races and Asians with positive features. I was disappointed in this book, particularly in the improbable motive of the villain and even more improbable skill of a drug-addicted accomplice.
