Ceremony in Death
In Death, Book #5
By J.D. Robb
ISBN# 9780749934125
Author’s Website: http://www.jdrobb.com/
Review brought to you by OBS staff member Heidi
Ceremony in Death is the fifth book in Nora Robert’s popular In Death series that’s written under her pseudo name, J.D. Robb. The series centers around police lieutenant Eve Dallas and all the people in her life, including her co-workers, best friend and rich husband.
Death is always all around Dallas and this book is no different. Ceremony in Death starts out with Eve at a funeral for a fellow police officer, Frank, who appears to have died from natural causes. Everything seems fine—or at least as fine as they can be for a funeral—until Frank’s granddaughter, Alice, secretly passes Eve a note that asks her to meet her…oh yeah and that Eve’s life is in danger now.
Eve does go to meet Alice at the specified place and time, where Alice confides in Eve that Frank was murdered. Alice tells her that she dabbled into Satanism in a local cult led by Selina Cross and decided to leave the cult after walking in on a ritual killing of a child. She lived in fear after that until she finally told her grandfather everything. He was checking into Selina when he mysteriously died.
Later that night, Alice runs out in the middle of the road and is hit by a taxi that couldn’t swerve in time.
Every time Eve thinks she has the answers in this case and the proof she needs to put Cross away, the person that has given the answers or is about to come forward with information dies brutally. The victims are being carved up with an athame (ceremonial knife) that is left at the scene. One of the deceased was even left right outside the wall of Eve’s home and even Roarke is on edge worrying for Eve’s safety.
I thought this was a decent book, it wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst either. It kept you interested even if you did feel you knew who the killer was. In fact, I thought it was strange that it was made so obvious. But even being a bit predictable, it was still good.
And boy oh boy Roarke was a horny little guy in this installment!! It seemed like every scene with him in it he was trying and succeeding to initiate sex with Eve. Oh honey you look exhausted I think you need to have some sex to make you feel better. I normally don’t mind, it just didn’t feel that Roarke had much other purpose in this novel and I felt he could have brought so much more to the story then what he did.
This book touches a lot on Wicca and Satanism and the differences between the two and the ceremonies that each has. I’m not sure how the descriptions and rituals in this book stack up to the occult in real life as I have no experience with them although I think every place I’ve read or watched on Wicca has had them saying “blessed be” a lot as they do in this book as well.
This book was a bit different from the others and it wasn’t as exciting as some, but it was still a solid read and worth the time. And I’m sure the subsequent books will build off of things that have happened in this installment of the series.
