Cosmetic surgeon Dr. Wilfred B. Icove has been found dead in his office – efficiently murdered by one stab to the heart. Struck by the immaculate condition of the crime scene, Eve Dallas suspects a professional killing. Security discs show a woman calmly entering and leaving the building – the doctor’s final appointment. Known as “Dr Perfect”, Icove devoted his life to his family and his work. His record is clean. Too clean for Dallas. She knows he was hiding something and suspects that his son knows what it is. With her husband Roarke working behind the scenes, Dallas follows her instincts into the Icoves’ pasts. And what she discovers are men driven to create perfection – playing fast and loose with the laws of nature...
Description:
Cosmetic surgeon Dr. Wilfred B. Icove has been found dead in his office – efficiently murdered by one stab to the heart. Struck by the immaculate condition of the crime scene, Eve Dallas suspects a professional killing. Security discs show a woman calmly entering and leaving the building – the doctor’s final appointment. Known as “Dr Perfect”, Icove devoted his life to his family and his work. His record is clean. Too clean for Dallas. She knows he was hiding something and suspects that his son knows what it is. With her husband Roarke working behind the scenes, Dallas follows her instincts into the Icoves’ pasts. And what she discovers are men driven to create perfection – playing fast and loose with the laws of nature...
From Publishers Weekly
Set in the year 2059, this latest in Robb's long-running series (Naked in Death, etc.) featuring acerbic Lt. Eve Dallas of the New York police is the best in recent memory. In the past, Robb has kept whiz-bang futuristic effects to a minimum, allowing her world to grow organically out of dialogue and characterization; this time she incorporates science fiction elements—including the future of cosmetic surgery, cloning, scientific morality and physical mortality—into her plot, giving the series a big shot of adrenaline. Eve and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, are visiting the Wilfred B. Icove Center for Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery on a celebrity murder case when the center's founder, old Wilfred Icove, is discovered with a scalpel rammed into his heart. Wilfred Jr., also a surgeon at the center, is grief stricken, as is his family and most of the rest of the country. Wilfred Sr., everyone agrees, was a saint. Except he wasn't, as Eve and savvy mystery readers will have already guessed. Eve gathers her usual crime-fighting crew around her, including her drop-dead gorgeous, fabulously wealthy, staggeringly brilliant husband, Roarke. Robb tones down the romance and ups the action ante as the team uncovers an increasingly horrific crime that builds to a race-against-the-clock climax that will have readers cheering. (July)
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Review
'Sheer entertainment. GUARDIAN