Nothing ticks off NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas like a lying witness, unless it is a lying witness who also happens to be a murderer. Eve knows the story that Gwen Huffman is spinning should set her pants on fire, but does that mean that Gwen's a liar and a killer? Gwen claims that after discovering the body of sculptor Ariel Byrd, she went into shock and returned home to her apartment, where it took her over an hour to process what she saw before calling the police. Eve suspects there is much more to Gwen's story, but she does have a rock-solid alibi for the time of Ariel's murder. So the question remains, is Gwen really just the innocent witness she claims to be or did she play a more active role in the crime? With the fifty-second exceptional entry in her Eve Dallas series, Robb (aka Nora Roberts) once again hits her readers' sweet spot by serving up another addictive mix of high-octane pacing, memorable characterization, and ingenious plotting.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The usual big-dollar, multiplatform and multimedia marketing campaign, and mega print run guarantees that fans will have the book's one-day laydown penciled in on their reading calendars.

The murder of sculptress Ariel Byrd in her West Village apartment drives bestseller Robb's well-crafted 52nd police procedural set in mid-21st-century New York City (after 2020's Shadows in Death). Oddly, the 911 call reporting Ariel's murder comes from the Upper East Side, from Gwen Huffman, the scion of a rich and powerful family. When Lt. Eve Dallas of the New York City Police and Security Department questions Gwen in the company of her lawyer-cum-fiancé, Eve finds many inconsistencies in Gwen's story that are soon revealed as lies. Aided by the FBI; Eve's husband, Roarke (a billionaire technology guru); and some plucky housewives, Eve and her colleagues in the NYPSD uncover a deadly conspiracy that includes some of the most influential men in the country. Robb skillfully balances the personal and professional lives of her protagonists, all the while maintaining a quick pace that keeps the investigation squarely in the frame. The final triumph of right over might will leave readers exhilarated. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (Feb.)

Lt. Eve Dallas follows the path from the murder of a West Village sculptor to a fearsomely powerful cult. Dallas and Detective Delia Peabody's snap forensic analysis in the apartment of Ariel Byrd suggests that the young woman enjoyed wine and sex shortly before she was beaten to death with her own mallet. The absence of a condom or any trace of seminal fluids suggests that her final partner was a woman--perhaps Gwendolyn Huffman, the friend who'd had an appointment to sit for a sculpture. Dallas and Peabody, who take against Gwen from the get-go, derive particular pleasure from attacking the tissue of lies she fed them during their first encounter, and their second, in one of the New York Police and Security Department's interrogation rooms, breaks her wide open. But Gwen didn't kill her lover; that job seems to have fallen to a member of Natural Order, the cult the Rev. Stanton Wilkey founded with significant financial backing from Gwen's wealthy parents. Natural Order had counted on Gwen's ability to lure her fiance, millionaire attorney Merit Caine, into their clutches, and when Ariel threatened the impending nuptials, one of them took her out. But which one? As Dallas and Peabody see in a visit to the cult's closely guarded compound, Wilkey runs a tight ship, and it's hard to believe that any of his underlings would have gone freelance without authorization from their racist, misogynistic, anti-gay, rapist master. As the franchise heroine squares off against an outsize villain who ticks all the anti-social boxes, readers around the world will be united in their absolute certainty about what's coming next. It's as if Robb armed Offred, gave her backup, and turned Margaret Atwood's dystopian fable into a comic book. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Mosley's Blood Grove puts popular protagonist Easy Rawlins front and center again (40,000-copy first printing).