Gizmo's Reviews

Series: In Death # 52
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover
Release Date: February 9, 2021
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Suspense

The scene in the West Village studio appears to be classic crime-of-passion: two wine glasses by the bed, music playing, and a young sculptor named Ariel Byrd with the back of her head bashed in. But when Dallas tracks down the wealthy Upper East Side woman who called 911, the details don't add up. Gwen Huffman is wealthy, elegant, comforted by her handsome fiancé as she sheds tears over the trauma of finding the body--but why did it take an hour to report it? And why is she lying about little things?

As Eve and her team look into Gwen, her past, and the people around her, they find that the lies are about more than murder. As with sculpture, they need to chip away at the layers of deception to find the shape within--and soon they're getting the FBI involved in a case that involves a sinister, fanatical group and a stunning criminal conspiracy.

J.D. Robb's Faithless in Death is the 52nd installment in the author's In Death Series. This series features Lt. Eve Dallas of the NYSPD Homicide Division, her partner, Detective Delilah Peabody, and her husband, Roarke. The novel opens with a seemingly straightforward murder: Ariel Byrd, a talented young sculptor, is found dead in her West Village studio, bludgeoned with one of her own mallets. Eve Dallas, the tenacious homicide lieutenant of the New York Police and Security Department, is called to the scene.

Initial evidence points to a crime of passion, possibly linked to Ariel’s romantic entanglements. However, as Eve and her partner, Detective Delia Peabody, dig deeper, they uncover connections to the Natural Order, a secretive and authoritarian organization with cult-like tendencies. What begins as a single homicide investigation balloons into a sprawling case involving abduction, brainwashing, and systemic abuse, forcing Eve to confront not only the perpetrators but also the moral weight of dismantling a dangerous ideology.

To maintain suspense, the plot unfolds with Robb’s trademark precision, layering clues, red herrings, and revelations. The investigation takes Eve and her team from gritty crime scenes to high-society enclaves, exposing the sinister underbelly of a group that preys on vulnerability under the guise of salvation. Interwoven with the case are personal stakes for Eve, whose own history of trauma resonates with the victims’ plight, adding emotional heft to her relentless pursuit of justice.

With nuance, Robb tackles weighty themes—religious fanaticism, abuse of power, and the manipulation of belief systems. The Natural Order, with its rigid hierarchies and extremist ideology, serves as a chilling allegory for real-world cults and authoritarian groups. The novel explores how such organizations exploit vulnerability, particularly among women and marginalized groups, without veering into caricature. Eve’s personal connection to the victims, rooted in her own history of surviving abuse, adds a layer of poignancy, making her fight feel deeply personal.

While chilling, the cult’s inner workings occasionally lean on familiar tropes (e.g., charismatic leader, brainwashed followers), which slightly dilute their impact. While satisfying, the resolution of the Natural Order storyline wraps up a bit too tidily. The dismantling of such a sprawling organization feels streamlined, with some loose ends glossed over in favor of a clean close. This is a minor quibble, as the emotional payoff remains strong, but more ambiguity could have heightened the realism.

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Series: The Hunger Games # 0.5
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Release Date: March 18, 2025
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Dystopia

When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Sunrise on the Reaping (2025) is the fifth book in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series and the second prequel, following The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020). Set 24 years before the events of the original trilogy, it centers on the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, and follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, the District 12 victor who later mentors Katniss Everdeen. Sunrise on the Reaping begins on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games in District 12, a coal-mining region in the dystopian nation of Panem.

After a brush-up during the reaping, Haymitch is chosen as one of four tributes (twice the usual number due to the Quarter Quell’s twist). The other District 12 tributes are Maysilee Donner, a sharp-tongued merchant girl; Louella “Lou Lou,” a young friend Haymitch views as a sister; and Wyatt, “a compulsive oddsmaker” who thinks he knows who is going to win this year's contest. Haymitch is torn from his family—mother Willamae and brother Sid—and his girlfriend, Lenore Dove, whose name echoes Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”

Haymitch navigates the Hunger Games’ spectacle in the Capitol, orchestrated by President Snow and the gamemakers. He’s dehumanized—transported in cattle cars, caged for public display, and subjected to propaganda-driven media manipulation. During training, Beetee Latier, a former victor, recruits Haymitch for a rebel plan to sabotage the arena, motivated by his son Ampert’s reaping as punishment for Beetee’s defiance. Haymitch agrees to detonate explosives in an underground water tank to flood the arena, hoping to disrupt the Capitol’s control.

The arena is a poisonous, pastoral nightmare—a warped locus amoenus with toxic pollen, mutts (genetically engineered creatures), and deadly flora. Haymitch allies with non-Career tributes (the “Newcomers”), including Ampert and Maysilee, but abandons most to execute the sabotage. The carnage continues until Haymitch wins the Games by exploiting the arena’s force field, which angers the Capitol, and we know what happens when you anger Snow.

Haymitch evolves from a resigned District 12 teen to a defiant victor. His wit, survival instincts, and emotional depth make him compelling. His trauma—losing everyone he loves—explains his later alcoholism and cynicism toward mentoring anyone who is likely not going to survive the Games. After all, he's supposedly the second winner, but nobody knows what happened to the first. Some characters appear that you all know very well. Plutarch Heavensbee, Effie, Mags, and Wiress.

Despite its tragic tone, the novel offers glimmers of hope. Haymitch’s promise to Lenore to end the reaping becomes his life’s mission, fulfilled indirectly through Katniss’ revolution. Finally, it has been announced that Collins has agreed to sell the rights to this book for a movie that should be released in 2026.

“Happy birthday, Haymitch!”

The upside of being born on reaping day is that you can sleep late on your birthday. It’s pretty much downhill from there. A day off school hardly compensates for the terror of the name drawing. Even if you survive that, nobody feels like having cake after watching two kids being hauled off to the Capitol for slaughter. I roll over and pull the sheet over my head.

“Happy birthday!” My ten-year-old brother, Sid, gives my shoulder a shake. “You said be your rooster. You said you wanted to get to the woods at daylight.”

It’s true. I’m hoping to finish my work before the ceremony so I can devote the afternoon to the two things I love best — wasting time and being with my girl, Lenore Dove. My ma makes indulging in either of these a challenge, since she regularly announces that no job is too hard or dirty or tricky for me, and even the poorest people can scrape up a few pennies to dump their misery on somebody else. But given the dual occasions of the day, I think she’ll allow for a bit of freedom as long as my work is done. It’s the Gamemakers who might ruin my plans.

“Haymitch!” wails Sid. “The sun’s coming up!”

“All right, all right. I’m up, too.” I roll straight off the mattress onto the floor and pull on a pair of shorts made from a government-issued flour sack. The words COURTESY OF THE CAPITOL end up stamped across my butt. My ma wastes nothing. Widowed young when my pa died in a coal mine fire, she’s raised Sid and me by taking in laundry and making every bit of anything count. The hardwood ashes in the fire pit are saved for lye soap. Eggshells get ground up to fertilize the garden. Someday these shorts will be torn into strips and woven into a rug.

I finish dressing and toss Sid back in his bed, where he burrows right down in the patchwork quilt. In the kitchen, I grab a piece of corn bread, an upgrade for my birthday instead of the gritty, dark stuff made from the Capitol flour. Out back, my ma’s already stirring a steaming kettle of clothes with a stick, her muscles straining as she flips a pair of miner’s overalls. She’s only thirty- five, but life’s sorrows have already cut lines into her face, like they do.

Ma catches sight of me in the doorway and wipes her brow. “Happy sixteenth. Sauce on the stove.”

“Thanks, Ma.” I find a saucepan of stewed plums and scoop some on my bread before I head out. I found these in the woods the other day, but it’s a nice surprise to have them all hot and sugared.

“Need you to fill the cistern today,” Ma says as I pass.

We’ve got cold running water, only it comes out in a thin stream that would take an age to fill a bucket. There’s a special barrel of pure rainwater she charges extra for because the clothes come out softer, but she uses our well water for most of the laundry. What with pumping and hauling, filling the cistern’s a two-hour job even with Sid’s help.

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” I ask.

“I’m running low and I’ve got a mountain of wash to do,” she answers.

“This afternoon, then,” I say, trying to hide my frustration. If the reaping’s done by one, and assuming we’re not part of this year’s sacrifice, I can finish the water by three and still see Lenore Dove.

A blanket of mist wraps protectively around the worn, gray houses of the Seam. It would be soothing if it wasn't for the scattered cries of children being chased in their dreams. In the last few weeks, as the Fiftieth Hunger Games has drawn closer, these sounds have become more frequent, much like the anxious thoughts I work hard to keep at bay. The second Quarter Quell. Twice as many kids. No point in worrying, I tell myself, there’ s nothing you can do about it. Like two Hunger Games in one. No way to control the outcome of the reaping or what follows it. So don’t feed the nightmares. Don’t let yourself panic. Don’t give the Capitol that. They’ve taken enough already.