Man tortures women to death. Eve asks Roarke to make the killer's application for self-termination "disappear" so that he will live his last days in prison. ( )

As with all the Eve Dallas books, I really enjoyed this one. A very interesting and creative story. ( )

It's impossible for me to talk about this book without acknowledging that it's the latest in such a long-running series and that it's like visiting with old friends. I have no idea how this would measure up if I hadn't read and re-read and re-re-read and discussed to death the rest of the books in the series.

First, my complaints:

1. "The Groom" is David Palmer all over again, just expanded to a full-length book: he does the same sort of things with his victims; he's a case Eve and Feeney had worked on together before; Eve knows right away who the killer is. Okay, he was never caught, and David Palmer escaped, and The Groom has an additional motive... which leads me to
2. Why, why, why is every single serial killer story the same? Apparently, all you have to do is find someone with a female in his past who died in a manner similar to that of the victims, and voila: there's your killer. Nora's not the only culprit--this is why I quit reading romantic suspense for quite a while.

That said, I still enjoyed the story very much. The race to try to find him before he kills again, and to discover his identity, was well done--very police-procedural-ish, with clues and deductions and dead ends. It was nice, too, how Eve has learned to lean on friends for help... at least a little bit.

And of course, there's the ongoing relationship story between Eve and Roarke, who are still adjusting to marriage. Huge kudos to Nora for showing a stable, committed relationship after the wedding, dealing with disagreements and all the little bumps life throws at them. Very few books tackle the reality of a happy marriage, and I think that's important, as well as being entertaining to read.

Best, though, was the emotional impact on Eve and Feeney. When The Groom had been killing in New York 9 years previously, it had been Feeney's case and Eve had been his aide. Now it's Eve's case, and Feeney is just consulting on the computer stuff. The layers of emotion between them regarding this case were realistic and vividly conveyed. In fact, it's nearly more affecting than Ceremony, where Feeney's hurt because Eve keeps information from him, because in this case the emotions are so mixed and complex. For me, this made the entire book. ( )

This was the best Eve Dallas novel to date! I loved it - I can't wait to see if she has children or not. I think it was hinted that Roark would like that. Great book! ( )

I really liked that more of this book was seen from Roarke’s point-of-view. It was a nice change of pace — like an episode of a tv cop drama where there’s a camera crew tagging along and you see everything through *that* camera. I liked the sense of urgency in this one. Not a lot of side plots here, almost everything is about the case. Another change of pace. I guess you have to shake things up once you get to #25! ( )