Thankless in Death by J.D. Robb

Today we’re flashing back to another J.D. Robb listen, reviewed by Kaetrin 10 years ago!

Original review posted January 14, 2014

Narrated by Susan Ericksen

Thankless in Death is book 37 in the In Death series featuring Lt. Eve Dallas of the New York Police & Security Department and her husband, billionaire and gorgeous Irishman, Roarke. I’ve read/listened to them all and I’m not sick of them yet. That should tell you something.

I complained a little about the previous two books because they seemed to be more focused on the police procedural aspects and less about relationships. As much as I enjoy the former, it is the latter which is the big draw. After so many books, the secondary characters are fully fleshed out too, so there is something of returning to family in the pleasure of a read/listen for me. I was happy that this entry felt more personal. There was plenty of police procedure-ing in the book but it felt more personal somehow – both in terms of the crimes and the relationship between Eve and Roarke.

This book’s villain is a very nasty individual – Gerry Reinhold. He is an ungrateful, lazy, entitled asshole (that’s from the book by the way). Finding unexpected joy and delight in killing, he decides to make everyone who’s ever slighted him pay and it’s up to Eve and her team to stop him.  I’ve said before that Robb has a way of making me care about characters (most especially victims) in very few words. Here, I was treated to extra words so I was in a position to care about them even more than usual – I found myself choking up more than once. That said, the violence on page is fairly graphic so those who are squeamish may want to beware.

Thankless in Death is set around Thanksgiving (2060) and Roarke has all his Irish family coming in and Eve and Roarke have invited all their friends for a big turkey dinner as well. Both are given special recognition by the NYPSD and there is even talk of promotion for Eve. There was plenty of the personal to satisfy me.

Susan Ericksen has narrated the whole series. Her characterisations have been so internalised that I hear her voice and tones, even if I’m reading rather than listening. She rarely misses a beat when it comes to Eve and Roarke and the rest of the crew (Peabody, McNab, Feeney, Mira, Baxter, Trueheart, Commander Whitney, Mavis, etc, etc.).  She was (again) able to convey the oily, entitled and childish rage of the villain and add to those victim characterisations I talked about above. Some of the scenes were definitely creepy and the audio experience only made it more so.

As long as this series has gone on, I don’t get tired of it. I found myself eager to continue the listen, finding excuses to keep doing so. The tension in the story, as well as the threat and build up to the take down, was gripping and Ms. Ericksen’s narration ramped it up without being overdone or melodramatic. There were a couple of vocal errors and a time where Roarke spoke (briefly) in Eve’s voice, as well as a couple of mismatched pronouns.

But Susan Ericksen delivered yet another reliably good narration of a favourite series. There are so many characters in any In Death book that it must be a significant challenge to voice them all in such a way that they sound different for the listener. But she manages to do that with rare exception. That choking up I talked about before? At least half of it must have come from her performance – and I mean that as a compliment.

Kaetrin

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