Look, I'll be honest - I picked this up expecting a full-length In Death novel and got a novella instead. Three hours. That's barely a shift at the reference desk. But here's the thing: sometimes constraint is where the creepy lives, and J.D. Robb clearly understood the assignment with this one.
I was shelving returns after close - just me and the fluorescent buzz of the back room - and I figured a futuristic murder mystery set in a haunted nightclub would be perfect company. Shirley (my cat, not Jackson, though the energy was similar) had already stationed herself on the Returns cart like a gargoyle. Atmosphere: achieved.
A Haunted Nightclub in 2060 and I'm Already Sold
The premise is almost absurdly my thing. Number Twelve - a legendary 1960s club turned urban myth by 2060, supposedly cursed and haunted after the disappearance of a young rock singer decades ago. New owner buys it, wants to restore the glory days, gets shot dead with a banned antique gun. Eve Dallas investigates. Ghosts may or may not be involved.
This understands that horror isn't about gore - it's about dread. And what Robb does here, even within a mystery framework, is let the haunting breathe. She doesn't need Eve to believe in ghosts for the atmosphere to work. Eve's stubborn pragmatism - her refusal to entertain the supernatural while everything around her screams otherwise - creates this fantastic friction. The club itself becomes a character, and the connection between the 1960s disappearance and the present-day murder unfolds with the kind of slow reveal that works beautifully in audio.
But - and this is the catch - if you haven't read other In Death books, you're going to feel like you walked into someone else's dinner party mid-conversation. Characters reference history you don't have. Relationships carry weight you haven't earned. It's not impenetrable, but it's definitely designed for people already invested in Eve and Roarke's world.
Susan Ericksen's Roarke Is the Real Haunting
Susan Ericksen has narrated so many of these books that she basically IS Eve Dallas at this point. But what got me was her Roarke. That Irish brogue she uses for him isn't just an accent choice - it's a class marker, a seduction tool, a way of telegraphing when he's being the billionaire husband versus when he's being the street kid from Dublin. There's a scene where the threat shifts toward Roarke specifically, and Ericksen drops his voice into something quieter, more controlled, and you can feel the danger in the restraint. The narrator commits. That's rare.
Her Eve is clipped, no-nonsense, slightly irritated at all times - which, honestly, mood. The contrast between Eve's flat cop-speak and the increasingly strange circumstances she's dealing with creates its own kind of dark comedy. Ericksen doesn't oversell the spooky elements either. She lets the writing do the atmospheric work and keeps the performance grounded, which is exactly the right call for a protagonist who'd rather eat glass than admit a ghost might exist.
The Novella Problem (It's Real, But It's Not Fatal)
Three hours. That's where the frustration lives. The mystery connecting the 1960s singer's disappearance to the present-day murder is genuinely interesting, but it resolves faster than it should. You can feel the compression - moments that could've been full scenes get summarized, suspects that could've been fleshed out get sketched. The haunted club deserved more room. The singer's story deserved more room. Eve's internal battle between logic and the unexplainable? Absolutely deserved more room.
It's like getting a really good appetizer when you were hoping for a meal. Satisfying in the moment, but you're going to be hungry again in twenty minutes.
That said - for what it is, it works. The pacing is tight because it has to be, the atmosphere is genuinely unsettling (I may have glanced over my shoulder in the stacks, which is embarrassing for a grown adult), and the resolution, while quick, doesn't cheat.
Who Gets the Most Out of This
If you're already deep into the In Death series, this is a fun detour - a ghost story wearing a police procedural's clothes. If you scare easily, skip. If you don't, you need this. If you've never read Robb before, start with a full-length novel instead. You'll appreciate this more with context.
My podcast listeners who've been asking for horror-adjacent mystery recs are going to love this, with the caveat that it's a snack, not a feast. Gone Too Deep scratches a similar itch if you want something that commits fully to the dread without the series baggage.
Cataloging This One Under "Worth the Detour"
I listened in the dark. Mistake? Maybe. Worth it? Absolutely. It's not going to replace Hill House in my nightmares, but Number Twelve - the club, the concept, the creeping wrongness of it - stuck with me longer than a three-hour novella has any right to. Ericksen's performance elevates it from quick series entry to something with genuine atmosphere. Just know what you're getting: a short, sharp ghost story filtered through a cop's skepticism, with an Irish-accented husband who might be in danger. At three hours, the price of a full credit feels steep, but catch it on sale and you've got yourself a perfect late-night listen.
