Payback in death

Retired NYPD Captain Martin Greenleaf's death might look like suicide, but Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows better. It takes Eve only a few minutes surveying the site of Greenleaf's death for her to be certain that it is a crime scene. Since Greenleaf spent decades rooting out crooked cops as part of NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, there is no shortage of people who would not be unhappy to see Greenleaf dead. The question for which Eve must now find the answer is, exactly which of those suspects crossed the line from thinking about killing Greenleaf to making it a reality? Robb (Encore in Death, 2023) continues to come up with ingeniously plotted crimes for her fierce and fabulous detective Eve Dallas to solve as evidenced by the fifty-seventh propulsively paced entry in this endlessly entertaining series.

When Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called to a case before her vacation is over, she knows it must be important. Lieutenant Webster has found the dead body of his mentor, Captain Martin Greenleaf, and has requested that Dallas head up the investigation. Greenleaf was the retired head of the Internal Affairs Bureau, and at first glance, his death appears to be a suicide. Webster insists it wasn't, and it doesn't take long for Dallas to agree. Greenleaf was tough on dirty cops over the years, so Dallas and her partner Peabody, along with the team, look for ex-cops who threatened Greenleaf or his family. Dallas can't let go of her suspicion that someone knew a cop who died by suicide and that the killer wanted it to appear that Greenleaf did the same. The team slogs through Greenleaf's past, despite threats from an out-of-control detective, as they look for clues. Who wanted Greenleaf dead, and why make it look like suicide? VERDICT Anyone who enjoys a solid police procedural will appreciate the 57th "In Death" title (after Encore in Death), but Robb's fans will especially relish the return of Dallas's found family of cops, her team, and of course, her husband Roarke.--Lesa Holstine

In 2061, Lt. Eve Dallas returns from visiting her husband's people in Ireland to confront the murder of a man whose entire career had been devoted to making mortal enemies. Before he retired, Martin Greenleaf was a captain in the New York Police and Security Department's Internal Affairs Bureau. Day after day he gathered evidence against fellow officers who were taking bribes, attacking criminals with excessive violence, using force against partners who refused to go along with their hooligan methods, working hand in glove with organized crime, or establishing criminal networks of their own. Several of the cops Greenleaf targeted escaped the law by killing themselves, leaving behind vengeful spouses, siblings, and children. Now Greenleaf himself is dead, apparently by his own hand (though it doesn't take Dallas more than a few minutes to disprove that theory to her satisfaction). Which of the many, many enemies he'd toiled to bring to justice has turned the tables on him for good? The field is so rich that much of this tale is given over to interchangeable interviews by Dallas and Det. Delia Peabody of basically interchangeable suspects. A breakthrough comes when Dallas observes that the manner of Greenleaf's death closely echoes that of one of those bad cops--and the parallels will thicken as she pursues the case. And a major obstruction presents itself when Det. Joe Lansing of the IAB accuses Dallas of disloyalty to the blue line and launches a violent attack on her himself. It's just another day in a near-future landscape filled with dead, dirty cops. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.