J.D. Robb's In Death Series
Character Development Provides Incentive for Writing Mystery Series
Apr 19, 2009
The prolific Nora Roberts had already won fame as a writer of individual romantic suspense novels when she began, under a new name, a detective series set in New York City in the year 2058. Roberts' In Death series unites romantic suspense and futuristic science fiction elements within the framework of the traditional detective novel. This series also reverses a pattern established by other mystery series writers who gain initial fame for their series writing but then move toward spinoffs and standalones for a further creative outlet.
Origin of The In Death Series
As Roberts explains on her website, the In Death series resulted both from her prodigious output and from her artistic need to create fully developed characters. In 1995, having a large number of works already written and waiting to be published, she created a new persona to allow for additional output. She selected J.D. Robb as her pen name, combining the initials of the names of her sons, Jason and Dan, with a diminutive form of Roberts.
Roberts started the series with a trilogy focusing on the relationship between Lieutenant Eve Dallas, New York Police and Security Department detective, and the handsome, mysterious billionaire Roarke, who appears as a murder suspect in the first title in the series, Naked in Death (1995). Not only were Eve and Roarke immediately attracted to each other, but so too was their creator. Roberts writes, “I really fell for the characters, and hoped the readers would respond to them so I could keep writing the series.” She continued the story of their romance in the other two volumes of the trilogy, Glory in Death (1995) and Immortal in Death (1996).
On an artistic level, Roberts saw the mystery series format as an opportunity to develop Eve, Roarke and the secondary characters who populate the series more fully than she had done with other characters in her previous standalones and sets. In an interview on her Penguin author page, Roberts comments, “Each book resolves the particular crime or mystery that drives it, but the character development – the growth and changes – and the tone of the relationships go more slowly. I enjoy that tremendously."
Since its 1995 beginning, Roberts has added approximately two titles per year to the In Death series. Promises in Death is her first 2009 release, with Kindred in Death expected later in the year.
A Readers Advisory
Readers interested the romantic relationship between detective and murder suspect will find a parallel in the works of an earlier master of the detective novel, Dorothy Sayers. In Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series, Lord Peter meets Harriet Vane after her conviction for the murder of her lover in Strong Poison (1930). After being acquitted, Harriet finds the body of yet another murder victim in Have His Carcase (1932). In Gaudy Night (1935) she returns to Oxford for a college reunion and consults with Lord Peter about the strange occurrences she finds there. In Busman's Honeymoon (1937) their honeymoon is interrupted by a murder.
About Nora Roberts
Born in Maryland, Nora Roberts has been married to her second husband, Bruce Wilder, since 1985. She credits the origin of her award-winning writing career to a February 1979 blizzard in which she was snowed in with her two young sons. Beginning with category Silhouette romances, Roberts quickly moved to writing bestselling novels like Northern Lights (2004) and Tribute (2008).
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