Jonetta's Reviews > Payback in Death

the setup…
NYPSD Lieutenant and Homicide Detective Eve Dallas and her über wealthy husband Roarke have just returned from a well-earned vacation to Greece with a brief stopover in Ireland. They thought they had a least 24 hours before she had to face the backlog of paperwork and he the demands of a massive business empire. But Eve receives an urgent request in the middle of the night to come to a murder scene, coming from an unusual source…IAB Detective Don Webster, a former suitor and Roarke’s nemesis. The victim is retired IAB Captain Martin Greenleaf who was found dead in what looked like a possible suicide. But Webster is convinced otherwise and knows he needs the very best investigator on the case.

the heart of the story…
To say that Eve and Webster have a complicated past is putting it rather mildly but they’ve always respected one another. It doesn’t take long for Eve to share Webster’s suspicions that the scene was staged. But she knows what’s needed is to do the job and that means to gather the evidence and follow procedure to the letter. Being a cop who took down bad cops, Greenleaf had an endless list of suspects to pursue. I loved the procedurals in this one because they were not only stellar, they exposed the level of muck Internal Affairs has to deal with when faced with bad cops. I watched as Eve’s opinion of Greenleaf evolved from one of forced acceptance to respect as a cop who died in the line of duty.

the bottom line…
Strong themes about family were pervasive, including those that aren’t created biologically. It was a wonderful aspect of the story as Eve seems to finally get who and what that means to her. One of the reasons I love this series is because of its outstanding character development and it’s in full force here as we revisit old and continuing relationships, including Mavis & Peabody’s great house project. But it was the procedural here that kept me hooked as Eve trusted her instincts, even when there was little to support it, to ferret out the elusive killer. This one is outstanding.

Posted on Blue Mood Café