Pagan Picnic

Although the In Death numbering scheme makes it look as if this book is the sequel to Imitation in Death, it's not. Between the two, Roberts wrote a half Roberts/half Robb novel called Remember When, a two part book set half in present day and half in 2050s NYC. Only the second half is about Dallas, and it's available standalone under the title Big Jack. It's a very nice story, so go back and get it if you missed it.

Now, about this book...

I'm listening to the series in order, and Divided is my favorite since Witness. There is real tension between Eve and Roarke as he is torn between his desire to protect her "bad Roarke" style and his respect for the law through her.

There is, as a negative review noted, a higher percentage of dialog to action than in some other books, but if you're into series fiction it's really all about the characters. This book has some great Roarke and Dallas character development, funny and touching scenes with the still pregnant Mavis, and some interesting glimpses into the workings of the mysterious Roarke Enterprises.

Program your auto chef for coffee and danish, put on your favorite Freestone album, and enjoy.

Okay, you're hooked on In Death and you're going to buy this no matter what my review says. I get it - I ignored the bad review to buy it, too.

Here's the thing - it's bad. Really, really bad. Maybe Roberts had the flu when she wrote it. Maybe Ericksen caught it from her. But it stinks. The plot is laughable. Peabody, Meara, Roark and, it pains me to write this, even Dallas act so stupid you'd swear they couldn't solve a glide cart stickup.

So, all my fellow fans, go ahead and buy it. It's only three hours long, which means it's cheap, so do yourself a favor and spend the $10 in cash to buy it. That way, once you've finished it and need to get the bad taste out of your mouth, you'll still have a credit left to get a GOOD book.

I'm off to Born in Death with high hopes...

Oh - and if you hate this one, please come back and write a review...

I like the In Death books, but I'm not particularly fond of the Roberts genre. So I wasn't looking forward to the first half of Remember When, in which the first half called Hot Rocks is a current day story setting up the back story to Dallas' adventures. I was pleased to find Big Jack available separately.

The book stands on its own, and has plenty of narrative to catch the reader up on events of Hot Rocks. It also contains some great In Death moments, including Peabody's attempts to adapt to plain clothes in her new role as detective.

People ask my why I bother to buy audio books, since I have a Kindle and it will read to me in a male or female voice. My answer is always that the auto voice of the Kindle sounds as if it were reading the phone book, while a voice performance on an Audible book is like listening to a well-produced radio play. What a disappointment this book has been! Perhaps the reader was having a quarrel with the publisher and this is her equivalent of going on strike? As others have said, the voices are indistinguishable: especially one cannot tell Dallas from Peabody, which makes many sections of dialog confusing. I know some people complained that Peabody was from AZ and had a NY accent, but this is ridiculous. I will definitely preview additional titles in this series, and anything else read by Ms. Ericksen, before buying. Who knows, maybe she has bought stock in Amazon?

I bought this yesterday and listened to the first hour. It's horrible. No introductory "Editor's Notes", no indication of when the action switches between Amelia's diary, Ramses' "manuscript H" and Nefret's letters. So much is missing.
Because I like the series, and after some reflection, I decided to go to Recorded Books, order the unabridged version on 14 CDs, pay $62 plus shipping, wait for it to come, then rip the CDs into iTunes. The ridiculous nature of having to do such a TwenCen transaction is why I suspect this book and the next two are highly pirated. Nobody under 40 would wait - they will just hop on BitTorrent and go get an illegal copy.
Audible, please talk to the copyright owners. It's not as if Rosenblatt never recorded this book unabridged and it's not available. They are losing money, and deserve to be whacked with Amelia's parasol!