Fantasy in Death [Hardcover]

J. D. Robb (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 23, 2010 | Series: In Death

In the latest novel from #1 New York Times-bestselling author J.D. Robb, it is game over for the criminals pursued by NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

Bart Minnock, founder of the computer- gaming giant U-Play, enters his private playroom, and eagerly can't wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to play the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company's latest top-secret project, Fantastical.

The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game. . . .

NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is having as much trouble figuring out how Bart Minnock was murdered as who did the murdering. The victim's girlfriend seems sincerely grief-stricken, and his quirky-but-brilliant partners at U-Play appear equally shocked. No one seemed to have a prob­lem with the enthusiastic, high-spirited millionaire. Of course, success can attract jealousy, and gaming, like any business, has its fierce rivalries and dirty tricks-as Eve's husband, Roarke, one of U- Play's competitors, knows well. But Minnock was not naive, and quite capable of fighting back in the real world as well as the virtual one.

Eve and her team are about to enter the next level of police work, in a world where fantasy is the ultimate seduction-and the price of defeat is death. . . .

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lt. Eve Dallas, a top homicide cop for the New York Police and Security Department (the law enforcement agency for a mid 21st-century New York City), faces one of the more challenging cases of her career in bestseller Robb's exciting 31st in death novel (after Kindred in Death). When someone cuts off the head of Bart Minnock, the genius founder of the computer gaming company U-Play, apparently while he was role-playing against an imaginary opponent in a prototype of a fantasy adventure that could rock the industry, Eve investigates. Security logs show no one entered Minnock's building around the time of his murder, presenting a futuristic variation on the classic locked-room mystery. Aided by her husband, Roarke, who was a potential business rival of the victim, Dallas focuses on who would benefit from Minnock's death. Robb is the pseudonym of romantic suspense author Nora Roberts. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Even though Fantastical was still in the testing phase, Bart Minnock was certain the virtual-reality game would murder the competition. Instead, Bart is the one found dead. Now Lieutenant Eve Dallas has to come up with a plausible theory as to how someone could bypass the foolproof security in the millionaire’s holo-room and decapitate him. The fact that the popular gaming guru doesn’t seem to have any enemies isn’t making Eve’s job any easier, but the more time Eve spends investigating the case, the more evidence she finds that several people may have had a reason for wanting Bart out of the way. Now, with a little hands-on training from her husband, Roarke, a computer-gaming expert, Eve sets out to write a program for catching a clever killer. In the thirtieth addition to her best-selling Eve Dallas series, Robb successfully mixes a classic locked-room murder with plenty of cutting-edge twenty-first-century technology, and the end result is an ingenious tale of crime that delivers plenty of Robb’s patented dangerous chills and passionate thrills --John Charles

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (February 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399156240
• ISBN-13: 978-0399156243
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (167 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J.D. Robb is the pseudonym for a number-one New York Times-bestselling author of more than 170 novels, including the futuristic suspense In Death series. There are more than 300 million copies of her books in print.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#69 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#5 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#5 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

#7 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#10 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#5 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#5 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

#7 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#10 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

147 of 155 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic new book in the "In Death" - series that concentrates on friendship January 24, 2010

By S.K.K.

Format:Paperback

When Bart Minnock, co-owner of a popular video game firm, is found brutally murdered Eve Dallas takes the case. And it's not an easy one for Eve.
Bart seemed to be a great, happy guy that nobody had trouble with. But finding a motive is not the only problem for Eve. Another is to find out how Bart was decapitated without anybody else in the room.
Eve must get past her own convictions about what is possible in the real world to close this case and find justice for Bart.

What I love about "Fantasy in Death" is that it concentrates on friendship. So there are lots of interactions between Eve and her colleagues, especially Peabody and Nadine. The scenes between Nadine and Eve are awesome and I like how the dynamics in their friendship are portrayed.
I was relieved that the new case is not so dark and hard to read like the ones in "Kindred in Death".
Another thing I love about "Fantasy in Death" is that this time Eve is the strong one in the relationship with Roarke. Roarke has some trouble to deal with the case because he knew the victim but Eve is there for him just like he is always there for her. It's awesome to see how she handles the fights with him and is understanding even when he hits her below the belt (for once Roarke is not 100% perfect!). But of course there are also some sexy and very sweet scenes between Eve and Roarke and whenever I read about them as a pair I'm just happy.
The mystery part of the story was very interesting and I didn't know who the bad guy was until it was revealed.

So, "Fantasy in Death" is another awesome book by J.D. Robb and I'm already excited to read "Indulgence in Death", coming in November 2010.

53 of 60 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing locked room mystery February 7, 2010

By Jayster

Format:Paperback

I love a good locked door mystery and J.D. Robb's Fantasy in Death delivers.

Long time friends Bart, Cill, Var and Benny are on the verge of releasing a state-of-art holo-game. Bart tests the game in the isolation and secured holo-room of his locked apartment and is killed. There are no clues. No weapon, no evidence of an intruder, no witnesses, nothing.

This is the crime super-cop, Lt. Eve Dallas, investigates with a little help from husband, Roarke. His input is more as a consultant and assists Feeney off screen, although he's there when Eve needs him. Eve struggles to understand e-tech, as always, but it is because she doesn't understand the environment that she can think of the unusual solution. I had my own suspects, but didn't truly settle on one until late in the book. Canny readers will pick up on the pivotal moment.

Fans of J.D. Robb will be excused for thinking this book is familiar with a particular scenario in the first of the series, Naked in Death, I know it rang a bell with me - but when you consider the two-year time frame, it's not such a leap.

I would have given the book five stars, except for the laziness of the copy-editor. This English version has unfortunate carriage returns in the middle of sentences, words that need spaces in between and comma issues. There are also problems with 'voice'. At one stage, I couldn't tell who was speaking, Roarke or Eve. Roarke doesn't have the speech patterns from previous books and the concept of 'friendship' is a bit belaboured.

Overall - if you can ignore the copy-edit problems - the story is great read and fans will be satisfied.

41 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The beginning of the end... February 26, 2010

By Jenn B.

Format:Hardcover

This, my fellow Eve and Rourke fans, is the the beginning of the end. Not in a horrible, "OMG, this series has totally gone downhill" but in the slow, beautiful way stories about couples come to a resolution. As Roberts says in the video on this page, people grow and change - Eve has had made amazing personal and emotional leaps from the first In Death novel and Rourke has been right beside her. "Fantasy" shows what happens when that growth starts to pay off. The entire time I was reading "Fantasy in Death", I felt like I was reuniting with friends I hadn't seen since their wedding and was now watching them interact as a couple that is deeply and passionately in love. Granted, Roberts sets it up way with a consistent narrative thread around relationships but not once did I feel she was pushing Eve and Rourke as a couple in the reader's face. Each time it emerged, it made perfect sense and was delightful to read. This is a series about Eve and Rourke and some books have been relationship-lite and cop-heavy. "Fantasy" is the ideal balance. Because it is book 30, the ending scenes gave my heart a bit of a stutter but the resolution only reinforced the consequences of Eve's growth as a woman and a wife. There is one meta-moment that I read as a shout out to fans (an Eve and Rourke conversation echoes comments that Nora Roberts has made about the end of the series) that made me chuckle and the technology has gone into truly science fiction, reinforcing that this is a series set in 2058. Like any good scifi author, Roberts/Robb has given us enough science to make is plausible and enough fiction to make it cool.

Fans of the series will no doubt read this book because that's what you do when a new one comes out. If you are new to the series and wondering if this is a good starting point, I say yes. Joining Eve and Rourke and Peabody (who I argue is one of the best written sidekicks in fiction) this far in their relationships will only make the journey from the beginning that much more enjoyable.

As an aside, all authors (romance or not) can learn so much about Roberts/Robb's skill with dialog. At a pivotal moment, when in the hands of a lesser author, Eve might scream, shout, beat her fist against her breast - she simply said three words and that sentence did more to communicate the depth of growth, emotion, and change in character than would seem possible.