Malin

Amaryllis Coltraine, a cop recently transferred to New York from Atlanta, and Chief Medical Examiner Morris' current girlfriend is found murdered in the basement of her apartment building. The murder of a cop is always something that shakes everyone involved, but for Dallas, who has to break the news personally to her good friend, it becomes imperative that she track down the person or persons responsible. As she and Peabody investigate Ammy Coltraine's murder, they discover connections between her past and that of Eve and Roarke. Coltraine's former lover, currently conveniently visiting New York, is the son of Max Ricker, a man currently serving multiple life sentences on a prison colony off world thanks to Lt. Dallas and her husband. Is the son as dangerous and corrupt as his father, or is his presence in the city just a coincidence?

While Coltraine had only been mentioned as a supporting character in a few of the preceding books, Morris has been one of the long-running secondary cast, and his burgeoning romance had been given some attention. To make the book even more sad, the prologue is from Coltaine's POV, as she leaves her flat for the last time, going to meet her murderer, and it's quite clear that she's happy and in love, making Morris' loss all the more tragic. Eve, Roarke, Peabody and the other regular character have to do their very best to try to comfort their friend in his time of need, while also investigating the murder of his girlfriend.

Because of the emotional connection to Morris and the way the murder felt personal to everyone involved, this book really affected me and although I couldn't remember Max Ricker at all (which isn't all that surprising, as I read the book he featured in nearly six years ago and never bothered to review it), it was clear that he was a pretty loathsome character and the question of whether his son was a chip of the the old block worked fine even if I couldn't recall who the father was or what exactly he had done.

Having now glommed three In Death stories in a row, I think I've satisfied my romance/sci-fi/mystery itch for this round. I'm ready for something different again now.