PROMISES IN DEATH

Lt. Eve Dallas reaches out from New York’s Homicide Division to outwit a perp sequestered off-planet on the Omega Penal Colony.

Det. Amaryllis Coltraine has fallen in love with Morris, the chief medical examiner, and vice versa. Everyone at Cop Central knows and approves. So when Amaryllis is found dead, the force unites behind Dallas to find out who’s killed her. Even the high-tech techniques available in 2060 disclose little about Amaryllis’s background except that she hailed from Atlanta, where she left a lover she never named, not even to Morris. Eve and her new husband, billionaire supersleuth Roarke, finally pinpoint the lover, antiques dealer Alex Ricker, who happens to be the son of master criminal Max, currently isolated far from Earth in a cage on the Omega Penal Colony. But with security so tight, how did Max eliminate Amaryllis, and why? Could there be a dirty cop who is liaising with Max? Alex, who has nothing good to say about dear old dad, relies on his factotum Rod Sandy, who may have been turned by Max. When Sandy is killed, Eve zeroes in on the cops at Central. Eventually she uncovers a sordid past, a vengeful present and serious territorial lapses.

Like its 29 predecessors (Salvation in Death, 2008, etc.), wry, sexy and facile, just as you’d expert from Robb’s practiced alter ego, Nora Roberts. The resolution is a bit of a letdown, but Roarke is a great pin-up boy, and you’ll swoon over those cars with vertical thrust.