Fantasy in Death

Fantasy in Death is the 30^th book in JD Robb’s best selling In Death series. From the inside cover flap.~

Bart Minnock, founder of the computer gaming giant U-Play, enters his private room, and eagerly can’t wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to take on the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company’s latest top-secret project. Fantastical.

The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Lieutenant Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game…

She is having as much trouble figuring out how Bart Minnock was murdered as determining who did the murdering. The victim’s girlfriend seems sincerely grief-stricken, and his quirky but brilliant partners at U-Play appear shocked as well. No one seems to have had a problem with the enthusiastic, high-spirited millionaire.

Of course, success can attract jealousy, and gaming, like any business, has its fierce rivalries and dirty tricks-as Eve’s husband, Roarke, one of U-Play’s competitors, knows well. But Minnock was not naive, and he knew how to fight back in the real world as well as the virtual one.

Eve and her team are about to enter the next level of police work, in a world where fantasy is the ultimate seduction-and the price of defeat is death.

Robb gives the reader another stellar mystery/romance with Fantasy in Death, not that I really ever expect anything less. Eve Dallas must get help from the NYPSD e-men and Roarke to help crack Bart Minnock’s murder. Bart is found murdered, behind a locked door in his private gaming room, where only Bart had entered the room. Feeney, McNabb, and Roarke go straight to work to try and recover what is on the destroyed disc still in his machine. As Eve and Peabody investigate Bart’s background, it seems as if he well liked by everyone he has met. Roarke had even tried to hire him before Bart and his 3 best friends started their own company, U-Play. As Eve and Peabody continue to look at all the angles, one of Bart’s partners is also attacked while playing the same game that killed Bart.

I will say that I had the killer figured out somewhat early in Fantasy in Death, which is unusual for me. I normally only figure out the “who-done-it” right before Eve reveals it. I’ve said again and again how much I love JD Robb’s books, and Fantasy in Death in yet another winner in my book. Now only have to wait until November when Indulgence in Death is released for my next Eve Dallas/Roarke fix.