Review: J. D. Robb shadow
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 18, 2014
First of all, I read the Black Creek Burning series, and enjoyed it -- until the 3rd book, Dark Vengeance.  The book seemed cluttered, ending one story and beginning another.  But, beyond that, the story was disjointed.  It jumped around, with no seeming connections between one scene and another.  OK, I thought.  I'll try the novella, Savage Echoes. And there I began to be disturbed.  Yes, I wanted to see the story through.  But it was still disjointed.  It burst out scenes, conversations, and they didn't flow.  While I wanted to know the conclusion of the story, following the plot was an exercise in frustration.  The most disturbing part is the Savage series' similarity to J. D. Robb's In Death series.  So, the other day, i bought Savage Deception, wanting to get to the end of the story begun in Dark Vengeance.  And there the clear similarities to Eve Dallas and Roarke became crystal clear.  Detective Nickie Savage -- a victim of shadowy sexual abuse, like Eve Dallas.  Like Eve, Savage's memories aren't yet clear.  Nickie becomes involved with a very rich man, as Eve does with Roarke.  Duncan, like Roarke, has great computer hacking skills -- and, exactly as does Roarke, ties his hair back in a tail while working on computers!  Like Eve, Nickie has had a one-night stand with a fellow officer with whom she now must work.  Like Eve,  Nickie is offered a better office, but prefers her crappy very small office.  Like Eve does Roarke, Nickie uses her boyfriend Duncan as a "civilian" consultant, and that consultant will be prominant (of course) in the rest of the series.  Like Eve, Nickie is terrified of having children, fearing she can't be a nurturer because of her sexual abuse. These are only some of the similarities I discovered -- without even looking.Yes, I wanted to find out what happened in this book.  Yes, I am sure there will continuing resolutions because some of the plot remains open.  And for that, I give it 2 stars.  If I didn't feel Wolfe was using Robb's characters as her own template, I might have gone to 3 or 3.5 stars.  The lack of flow, the inability to follow the connections in the plot because one paragraph says one thing.  it doesn't segue into the next -- the next paragraph refers to the characters having information without information as to how the info was obtained.So, this is the reason I give it 2 stars.  If I was J. D. Robb/Nora Roberts, I'd be wondering if my ideas were being used by another author, because these are quite clear similarities. The really clear smoking gun for me was Duncan tying his hair back when he hacks into computers, just as does Roarke.  That isn't a thing I've seen in any other book except the In Death books.  given the other similarities, I have to wonder.