Podcast in Death

This week, we review Judgment in Death, and this is another LONG episode! Lots of complicated Roarke feelings and marital disagreements between Eve and Roarke that needs to be unpacked. Also a lot of “Pissed off and Problematic Roarke,” though both Eve and Roarke are being dumbasses in this book.

The main theme of this book, in AJ’s opinion, is “Perceived Betrayals.” The killer is going after cops that he feels betrayed their badge, though it comes out later in the book that the victim in the first murder didn’t actually betray his badge, but was working undercover to help IAB (and Webster) to find cops that are dirty. So, his betrayal is not real but perceived. Then, Roarke walks in on Webster making a pass at Eve which is not an actual betrayal by Eve, but maybe a perceived one? You could also make the case that Webster is betraying his job at IAB to pass along hints to Eve, while simultaneously warning her to back off her investigation of the real bad guy of this story, Max Ricker.

Speaking of Max Ricker, he is a bad dude and one that Roarke had some “nefarious dealings” with back in the day, and Ricker has been working behind the scenes to try to bring Roarke down. When Roarke learns that Ricker is involved, he asks Eve not to go question Ricker without him, but Eve does it anyway. After Eve comes home from questioning Ricker, she finds that Ricker has sent her flowers. Eve asks Summerset to get rid of the flowers before Roarke sees them, but Roarke knows all, and confronts Eve, so Eve does a dumb thing and as Mavis says, Eve says: “Duh, what flowers?”

Speaking of Mavis, the scene between Mavis and Eve where they get drunk and talk about men is just amazing.

So Roarke is already pissed off about that when the thing with Webster happens and then while he and Webster are fighting, Eve threatens to stun him and that’s pretty much the last straw for him in this book.

This is when THE INCIDENT happens.

Dr. Mira broke “The Incident” down in this way:

Then you stand there, holding your weapon on him. Oh, what a sight that would have been. So he, metaphorically speaking, drew one of his own.

There are many readers who see what Roarke did to Eve during “The Incident” as rape, but is it really rape, or just a “Sketchy Consent Line”? We tend to see it as not rape, mostly because Eve doesn’t see it as rape.

Then later on in the book, Roarke steps over a line again by going over Eve’s head to Witney and Tibble directly to set up a sting to catch Max Ricker.

Again…they’re both being dumbasses in this book and making really bad choices!

One actual good choice is when Eve goes to Roarke’s office and drags him out of a meeting to talk, and they end up both apologizing, but that whole scene is also gold. Plus, Eve gets coffee and pastries.

Another oddball thing that happens in this book is Eve having a dream/flashback that tells her that her father had dealings with Max Ricker. In a later book we find out that Eve’s father also had dealings with Roarke’s father, and we realize that Eve’s father really got around! It’s the circle of life, we guess.

By the end of the book, they end up catching the killer AND setting up Max Ricker, so all’s well that ends well.

 

 

OFF TOPIC: On this episode we also talk about the recent incident that happened on Nora Roberts’ blog, “Fall into the Story” where “

This week we talk about what has become known as a "YANNI." This is an acronym for "Yet Another Noticeable Nora Inconsistency" or "Yet Another Nonesensical Nora Inconsistency." It was just our term for some of the little (or big) inconsistencies that Nora made in the books. We also go [...]

This week we talk about what has become known as a "YANNI." This is an acronym for "Yet Another Noticeable Nora Inconsistency" or "Yet Another Nonesensical Nora Inconsistency." It was just our term for some of the little (or big) inconsistencies that Nora made in the books. We also go [...]

This week, we review Witness in Death, and again...it's a LONG episode because so much happens! First of all, A.J. points out all the times that when she first read this book, she thought Roarke was a Dick. One of those times being that he almost ruined the perfectly lovely [...]

This week, we review Witness in Death, and again...it's a LONG episode because so much happens! First of all, A.J. points out all the times that when she first read this book, she thought Roarke was a Dick. One of those times being that he almost ruined the perfectly lovely [...]

This week, we review Witness in Death, and this is another LONG episode! Lots of emotional stuff happening with Eve mostly, but also with Peabody, and a lot of twists and turns in the case, so…

This was the first “In Death” book that A.J. had read, and we’ve said several times that she came away from this book with the impression that Roarke was a dick. So, we point out all of the reasons for that including him saying to Eve about Areena Mansfield: “No, I’ve never slept with her,” and then later, “Jealous, Darling Eve?” He also reacted to Eve setting up the dinner for him by saying, “What do you want?” and pissing her off. PLUS he makes a joke about watching Nadine’s sex tape, and that’s a DEFINITE dick move.

PLUS: Dude, YOU DON’T STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S USED SEX TOY!!! That’s just gross.

BUT…we should also say that when you read these books from the beginning, by the time you come to this one, you understand Roarke enough to know why he’s not necessarily a dick in these situations, that’s just how he is. AND, the times that Roarke is a real sweetheart to Eve and just an all around good guy to everyone else far outweigh the times he’s a dick.

Still: Dude, YOU DON’T STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S USED SEX TOY!!! That’s just gross.

Anyway…

Because of the nature of the case in this book, it’s bringing up a lot of stuff for Eve having to do with her past, so she has a few really bad moments. Including one that made her physically ill afterward, but then Eve and Roarke have sex…after she had puked…and that just seems gross. But, it’s another example of Roarke taking care of Eve.

It’s interesting though, because this case is also making Eve think about all the things that Roarke does for her, when she doesn’t always (or ever) reciprocate. So, Eve decides to set up a romantic dinner for Roarke (which he almost ruins because: dick), and that romantic dinner scene is so well written and probably one of the best scenes in the series.

There’s also some rocky relationship stuff with Peabody in this book, where Peabody is continuing this stupid love triangle with Charles and McNab, which could easily be solved with some good communication between them. But also, Eve and Peabody’s failure to communicate properly leads to a little blow-up between them having to do with this love triangle Peabody finds herself in.

In a nutshell, in this book, half the problems come from people communicating, and the other half of the problems come from people not communicating.

But, the good part is that Roarke steps in to give McNab some advice about how to win Peabody over, and it may just work.

Then, during the apprehension of the main suspect, Trueheart goes down in the line of duty, and Eve is blaming herself. Later, she brings Trueheart a present of a video game that he can play during his recovery, and finds out that she has “Authorization One,” which means that she doesn’t get charged for any Roarke Industries products. This pisses Eve off, but we think that Eve needs to start trying to be fucking grateful for the things Roarke does for her, including occasionally deciding what she should eat, because if he didn’t, she would eat like a 5-Year-Old.

Also, did we mention: Dude, YOU DON’T STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S USED SEX TOY!!! That’s just gross.

This week we talk about Eve's many "Marriage Rules!" It's a great bit of comedy relief in the series that we all love, but also, they are pretty solid relationship rules in general. BONUS!! Since we had extra time, we decide to ask each other some "Get to Know You" [...]

This week we talk about Eve's many "Marriage Rules!" It's a great bit of comedy relief in the series that we all love, but also, they are pretty solid relationship rules in general. BONUS!! Since we had extra time, we decide to ask each other some "Get to Know You" [...]

This week we talk about Eve’s many “Marriage Rules!” It’s a great bit of comedy relief in the series that we all love, but also, they are pretty solid relationship rules in general.

If you want to follow along with these, we have created a Wiki page for the Marriage Rules, and you can find it HERE: https://indeath.fandom.com/wiki/Marriage_Rules

Tara and Jen’s cats were both having a needy night when we recorded this, so you might hear them in the background alot in this episode.

We get a question about Nora Roberts’ “Donovan” series and how Mel and Sebasion from “Entranced” might be early Eve and Roarke prototypes. We’ve also discussed how Nora’s “Night Tales” series contain early Eve & Roarke Prototypes as well. It’s an interesting subject that we had planned on discussing in a Podvella anyway, so, you might get an episode on that soon.

BONUS!

We have also discussed inviting fans onto the podcast occasionally for a “Fan Profile” episode. In preparation for this, we came up with a list of a dozen “get to know you” questions to ask. But since this episode was pretty short, we decided to have each other answer all of these questions. So, this is a “get to know us” segment! The following are links to some of the things we discussed on the podcast, just in case you are curious and want to check them out.

Books we’ve read recently

This week, we review Loyalty in Death, and we apologize to you all ahead of time, but so much happens in this book that this is a LONG episode! We are introduced to Peabody's brother Zeke in this episode, and we love him! Also, Peabody and McNab finally end their [...]