REVIEW: Possession In Death by J.D. Robb

Title: Possession in Death (In Death, #31.5)
Author: J.D. Robb
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: November, 2010
Genre: Mystery / Thriller Rating: 10/10

Description: “The devil killed my body. I cannot fight, I cannot find. I cannot free her. You must. You are the one. We speak to the dead.”

Immediately after hearing these words, uttered to her by an old Romanian woman bleeding to death in the street, detective Eve Dallas begins to notice that her latest case has come with a number of interesting side-effects: visions of the deceased, instant familiarity with rooms she’s never seen before, and fluency in Russian. Likewise, there appears to be a force inside of her, a spirit other than her own, that won’t let her rest until she’s found Beata, the old woman’s great-granddaughter, whose disappearance two months prior remains a mystery.

Desperate to be free of her new “gifts”, Eve pursues the facts until she discovers a link between Beata’s disappearance and the disappearance of eight other young women, all of whom attended the same dance classes, none of whom were ever heard from again.

My Thoughts: Possession In Death is a novella originally released in the anthology “The Other Side” and is the only story in the anthology I read. I love this series so much that I have to read the in-between stories that are released in the anthologies. With Possession, I am glad I did because it picks right up where Indulgence in Death ends so it felt like a continuation of the story instead of a new one.

Though Possession in Death is a short story, it packs a huge punch with non-stop action when Eve inadvertently becomes possessed by the spirit of a Romanian woman after she dies at Eve’s feet. I enjoyed seeing how Eve dealt with her new gifts of being able to see the deceased souls and her ability to speak and understand Russian as well as knowing the recipe for goulash from memory. Eve handles it as only as Eve can. She gets pissed off and becomes determined to get to the bottom of the mystery so she can get her life back.

Eve’s stellar investigative skills and the assistance of her crack-shot team prove invaluable as the clues provide more than Eve imagined when she uncovers multiple victims of a sadistic killer. As no surprise to me as usual, I was way off-base on the killer’s identity. Lucky for me that I don’t mind being wrong. The biggest joy I get from this series is how I continue to be surprised and thoroughly entertained with each book.