Innocence in Death lit Anal #4

  Innocence in Death” another installment of the “In Death” series of novels written by J.D Robb. In this one Detective Dallas is back on the case to solve the murder of a seemingly normal history teacher of a prep school. Again this is a detective novel so most of the events follow along the lines of people being interrogated suspicion being thrown from person to person etc. Two girls were witness to the crimes Rayleen Straffo and her friend Melodie Branch. Rayleen is at the top of her class and has never received a grade lower than an A until her. She is a bright child full of promise, she also believes herself to be smarter than everyone else and she puts herself above most everyone else. Eve eventually puts two and two together after and realizes that Rayleen murdered her teacher after he gave her a B+ on her essay. She finds a diary that details the child’s plan in great detail. Eve brings her in for questioning and after a game of the minds she tricks Rayleen in to confessing to everything, she wasn’t about to let the veil of innocence fool her like it had everyone else. With the case closed Eve moves on just like always. The theme is that eventually the pressure we build up in our lives will eventually crush us. My evidence of this is Rayleen look at her; she’s a 10 year old girl who has never seen a low mark in her life who is constantly pushed by her parents to strive to be excellent in every way. So when she saw that lower grade and failed to convince her teacher to change it she snapped. The tone is dark and somber and remains so until the very end there aren’t very many other tones in a detective novel.

  So since I described Eve on the last Literature Analysis ill analyze the killer in this novel Rayleen. The Author goes about describing her basic looks brunette with long curly hair smart gifted kid. Where we really learn about her is in what she says and how she seems to have a cynical and overall disdain for those who can’t intellectually challenge her. She thinks herself an adult even though she’s only a child. Her actions also give major clues to her character and state of mind. The author uses both methods so that the reader gets a full scope of who she is and understanding shy she did what she did. When it comes to characters like Rayleen the Author keeps a strange eerie tone when speaking directly about her. Does Rayleen really change or does her demeanor just change from the beginning she is the murderer but she plays the innocent act the entire time and by the end she is tricked into singing the truth through her insanity. In this I came away reading just a character a psycho character but still just vivid words on a page.