I’ve read mysteries for the most part, since my teens. I love the puzzle aspect, the answers, or the start of them, you get by the end and the great detective that helps the world make sense. The last is the hardest, in my opinion, to pull off a in a mystery book series. The cute traits they have at the start of a series can grate by book ten. The struggle for development can lead a great character to make foolish choices. Sure we all do, but in a mystery, these decisions have more amplified consequences. It’s a balancing act, one that gets harder to pull off the further along you get. Someone who pulls it off, fifty plus books in, is J. D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts) The series works because she avoids three main traps that annoy me.
The Series Goes From Heightened To Crazy Town
Neighbors that used to be spies. Pets who never misbehave unless telegraphing a clue to characters. Protagonists so unlucky in love you wonder how they get out of bed in the morning, much less try dating again. Robb avoids this by removing all the touchstones that let you believe this fictional world looks, or works, anything like yours or mine. She sets it forty years in the future, explaining some of the disconnect, but that isn’t all. The characters possess backstories that aren’t unheard of, but out of the world for most of us. Eve Dallas, a former foster child found on the streets at around age 11 or 12, naked, with no memory of how she got there and evidence of sexual abuse. She grew up into a homicide detective of great skill. You know, your everyday mystery heroine. She meets Roarke, only one name, but hey billionaires are different. He’s an Irish man of mystery, and one with a past like Eve’s, on filled with darkness and abuse. They meet in book one, Naked In Death, and get married at the end of book three, Immortal In Death.
Let me make it clear: a cop and a billionaire businessman get married. It sounds like an intro to a bad joke, but, nope, that’s the set-up. Given that, I think it’s obvious that she gave you premise cranked up to eleven from the start. You know what you’re getting and go with it. Anything that come after, well, that’s just gravy on the crazy cake.
Supporting Cast Problems: Too Bright or Too Dull
Eve and Roarke are our main focus, but the supporting cast is deep and well developed. We follow Peabody (Eve’s partner) and her relationship with fellow cop McNab as well has how her free-ager, think hippie commune, upbring can sometimes clash with her job. Best friend Mavis’ singing career and growing family always show up as she is Eve’s touchstone, her first friend who forms the base of her ability to have relationships with everyone else. Nadine Furst, ace reporter, moves from a thorn in Eve’s side to a trusted ally who is both a big and an ethical journalist. And, of course, the surrogate parents; Summerset, Roarke’s adopted father who recused him as a child from his father’s brutal beatings. Feeney, Eve’s first partner and reluctant father figure. And the Mira’s, Charlotte, the replacement mother figure for Eve and Mr. Mira, the kindest uncle who you can always count on for a kind shoulder and sound wisdom. Eve and Roarke have created a family, and everyone in it gets to grow and develop. That’s of interest to long-time readers. More, we get to see how the growth affect everyone else in the circle.
Character Over Plot: The Mystery Is Boring
It’s a strange fact that too much character often acts to the determent of the actual mystery. I know, seems contrary to point two, but this is about the balance of plot to character. They mystery is the hardest part for many. This work makes the work of the puzzle feel like the weak link, because you have two things to suspend disbelief over. Here, Robb has the luxury of a cop for a central character, eliminating the often plot heavy contortions to have the detective encounter the body.
While not all of her books are homeruns, Eve gets mysteries worthy of her skills. And Robb does the work. Red herrings abound, grunt work exists and you feel like every plot point, even the wrong turns, make sense based on the data the characters have at the time.
Good Isn’t Perfect
Are these books perfect? Not at all. The recent questions about policing in this country caused me to look at them with a different eye. Robb doesn’t dig into the weeds of abuses of power that exist today and how that has, or hasn’t changed between today and 2059 when the series begins. She gets away with it, in part, because she created such an ethical character in Eve, the rule follower. But the bubble she lives in, one with cops who solve crimes and follow the rules, is the only division explored. That bubble only became aware of any corruption when done on a large scale, like a narcotics LT running a drug business on the side (Treachery In Death), the everyday abuses never touch her world, so it was easy to presume they no longer existed. I don’t buy that anymore. Interested to see, going forward, if Robb does.
And while same sex marriage is a norm, and treated as no big deal, it’s only in the last few books that you have a gay cop working for Eve. Same goes for the idea of mixed race people. They often show up as victims, witnesses, suspects and killers, but only recently did I get a sense of the racial mix of her division. That could perhaps be due to poor reading on my part, but I don’t remember it being made clear before.
Plus, they have access to an amazing amount of medical data on people. I mean, the deeply personal stuff that I didn’t the police could see without a warrant. I’m not a lawyer. Might be totally normal now and I’m just learning that. If so, consider me freaked.
Still I read them. Why? Because the stories are timely and well crafted, the characters are always changing and the justice that always comes in the end. More, I read them as a writer. This series works, and dissecting why it works goes a long way toward helping me in my writing. Do I write a series, no, but I am writing a trilogy, and seeing how she plants seeds that can sprout three, five or even ten books later is educational. What series do you like and why? Share below.