Reconstruction Vol. 11, No. 3
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Gender and Genre Bending: The Futuristic Detective Fiction of J.D. Robb / Linda Ledford-Miller
Nora Roberts may be the “Queen of the Romance,” but the J.D. Robb In Death series rests on the nexus of three genres of popular fiction: the romance, the detective story, and, to a lesser extent, science fiction, incorporating elements of each genre, but bending them to her own design. Robb takes the standardized elements of each genre and transforms them into something new, challenging and rewriting conventional gender roles along the way. The result is a kind of “super genre” created by the fusion of the three conventional formula fictions into a new genre with its own rules and conventions.
Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text; there is always a genre and genres, yet such participation never amounts to belonging.
—- Jacques Derrida, “The Law of Genre” (65)
As for the traditional, tough-guy, nonfeminist, anti-woman American detective novel, that has never been a DNOM [detective novel of manners], and, of course, never will be. If those who eschew this genre of violence still write detective novels of moral people able to conceive of a moral university, fighting for what seems right even when the system offers no rewards for such courage, they may be in the process of creating a new genre.
—-Carolyn Heilbrun, “The Detective Novel of Manners” (289)
<1> Under the gender-neutral pseudonym of J.D. Robb [1], Nora Roberts has created a series of (romance) detective novels set in a sci-fi future, challenging formulaic genres to create a unique, blended genre of her own. The J.D. Robb “In Death” series originated in 1995 with Naked in Death, which introduced the detective heroine Eve Dallas and her handsome nemesis Roarke, the Irish-born rake and rogue whose wealth is of suspicious origin. The thirty-second novel, Indulgence in Death was released on November 1, 2010, with the thirty-third, Treachery in Death, released in February, 2011. Woven in among the novels are “In Death” novellas published in anthologies with other women writers, beginning in 1998 with “Midnight in Death” in Silent Night, and published in an annual anthology beginning in 2006. The most recent release, “Possession in Death,” appeared November 30, 2010 in The Other Side, featuring novellas with a paranormal context.
<2> Roberts may be the Queen of the Romance [2], but the J.D. Robb In Death series rests on the nexus of three genres of popular fiction: the romance, the detective story, and science fiction, incorporating recognizable elements of each genre, but reformulating them to her own design—a design that not only contests the systemization of the elements of each genre, but the gendered roles of both women and men common to the traditional versions of these genres. Each of the above-mentioned genres is a kind of formula fiction, which implies “their essential standardization.” As we will see below, there are fixed rules and concomitant reader expectations to which authors must adhere in order to be a romance writer, a sci fi writer, or a mystery writer (Cawelti , Adventure 8). As Frederic Jameson puts it, “genres are essentially contracts between a writer and his readers,” or in this case, a writer and her readers (Frederic Jameson quoted in Cawelti, Mystery 102) [3]. Robb takes the standardized elements of each genre, elements readers of those genres will recognize and indeed expect, and transforms them into something new—a new genre that retains identifiable aspects of the three parent genres and contests conventional gender roles along the way. In the Robb series, for example, women may be stronger and fiercer than men, while men may be more romantic, more nurturing, and much better cooks than women.
The Romance
<3> According to the Romance Writers of America organization, the basic elements of a romance are “a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending.” These basic elements may vary greatly in the telling, yet they remain consistent throughout the several subgenres the RWA has identified (rwanational.org) [4]. The popular culture theorist John Cawelti asserts that the romance is “the feminine equivalent of the adventure story” (41). Though “most adventure formulas have male protagonists while most romances have female central characters,” the “crucial defining characteristic …is the development of a love relationship. …Romances often contain elements of adventure, but the dangers function as a means of challenging and then cementing the love relationship” (41). In the formula of the romance, there is some kind of barrier to the love relationship that must be overcome, whether social —he’s rich and she’s poor, also known as “the Cinderella formula”—or psychological —the wrong pairing eventually replaced by the true pairing of lovers, called “the Pamela formula,” (a more contemporary take might be the Bridget Jones formula).[5] Though the basic elements remain, the romance genre has transformed from its early “rape fantasy” and “bodice ripper” days to more clearly articulate the contemporary reality of women’s lives. As Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan note:
If there's a legacy that has lasted much longer in the popular conception of romance than its actual continued presence, it'd be the existence of rapist heroes in romance. ... The truth of the matter is, although rape scenes have largely disappeared from romance novels published from the early 1990s onward, they were ubiquitous in romance novels from the early '70s to the mid-'80s. (Beyond Heaving Bosoms 136-37) [6]
<4> Though the traditional formula remains—woman meets man, attraction ensues, conflict and tension prevent their union, challenges are overcome, a monogamous relationship begins, the modern woman no longer sits passively by the fire with her embroidery, endangered by male aggression and desire, in need of the salvation typical of earlier romance novels. Samuel Richardson’s impoverished eponymous heroine Pamela (1740) repeatedly resists the advances of her employer and only acquiesces when legitimate marriage is on offer. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) has been called “the best romance novel ever written,” and is considered a model of the genre (Regis 75). The protagonist Elizabeth Bennet spends much of her time indoors, in the family drawing room, writing letters or doing embroidery, and spurns the attentions of the wealthy Darcy until late in the novel. In contrast, today’s protagonist has a working life of her own and she is the subject, rather than simply the object, of sexual desire. As Catherine Asaro remarks, “romance acknowledges the ‘female gaze’ “ in contrast to the male gaze” (“A Quickie with Catherine Asaro on Feminism & Romance”). That is, a modern romance protagonist is free to admire and desire the male protagonist, and assert herself towards him. Contrary to earlier romance novels, rather than waiting for the man to rescue her, the contemporary woman may be as likely to rescue herself without his help, or even to rescue him. In Robb’s In Death series, Eve handles herself against her adversaries with strength, skill, and courage. While Roarke sometimes does come to her rescue, Eve consistently resists rescue as an implication of weakness, coming to Roarke’s aid upon occasion as well.
<5> The romance genre has been the object of much discussion. Is it a genre that affirms “the ideals of monogamous marriage and feminine domesticity” (Cawelti, Adventure 42)? Or is the act of “reading the romance” oppositional, as Janice A. Radway suggests, because the very act of reading is an act of resistance to patriarchal models, allowing “women to refuse momentarily their self-abnegating social role”? Or is romance a “recapitulation and recommendation of patriarchy and its constituent social practices and ideologies”? (Radway 210). Romance scholar Kay Mussell considers the romance genre to be inherently feminist, saying in an interview:
I don’t know how you can read many romances today as anything but feminist. To take just one issue: Heroes and heroines meet each other on a much more equal playing field. Heroes don’t always dominate and heroines are frequently right. Heroines have expertise and aren’t afraid to show it. Heroes aren’t the fount of all wisdom and they actually have things to learn from heroines. … In general heroines today have a lot more independence and authority than their counterparts did in earlier romances (“A Quickie with Kay Mussell”).
<6> Mussell points out that today “heroes are not invariably authority figures and may show more emotional vulnerability…. Moreover, authors do not pretend that love conquers all cultural or racial differences; instead these differences are frequently dealt with openly and as part of the problem to be resolved between the protagonists” (“Where’s Love Gone” 4). In the Robb series, the heroine is frankly suspicious of the very idea of love, compatibility, and commitment, in part because she believes she isn’t suited for a long term relationship.
<7> Although the female gaze and the female perspective inherently dominate romance novels, female subjectivity does not equate to feminist ideology. The “happy ever after” ending required of the romance genre rarely matches the lives of romance readers, though readers might ardently hope for just such a resolution in their own lives. Nevertheless, when Radway’s reader puts her novel aside to fix dinner and do the dishes, her resistance to patriarchal models seems short-lived indeed. As Jan Cohn observes, “Romance reading provides a complex set of gratifications for vast numbers of women in our society who, much as feminists may lament it, feel more secure than threatened under the conditions of patriarchy, which, if restrictive and damaging, are at least familiar” (6). In “Changing Ideologies in Romance Fiction,” Dawn Heinecken comments that “the feminist notions espoused in these romances are examples of essentialist feminism—women are validated based on naturally ‘feminine’ abilities … [but] this popular genre is at least beginning to construct messages that women have the right to succeed in the public realm and have the right to love without fear” (171). Nonetheless, the new found independence made available to women as a result of the feminist movement and feminism’s various incarnations and waves is clearly articulated in romance novels and their heroes and heroines. In her interview with Kay Mussell, Roberts says “I consider myself a feminist, one who believes in the power of women” (159). Yet her remarks are more indicative of the freedoms garnered as a result of feminism rather than exemplifying a feminist ideology. Nora Roberts/Robb asserts: “The fact that they [romance novels] are written primarily by women, most usually for women, is one of the most positive of feminist statements” (“The Romance of Writing” 199). Romance as a genre encompasses several subgenres and continues to benefit from new interpretations, responding “to changes in social attitudes towards sexuality and gender roles” (Vivanco and Kramer 30). Nonetheless, the traditional formula remains, and though writers and readers are primarily women, most feminists would argue that a “feminine” text is not by definition “feminist.” Romance as a genre is large enough to be both feminine and feminist, though many individual examples are merely feminine.
Science Fiction
<8> If romance is often considered fanciful (the utopian dream of finding the one true love, that love conquers all and solves all problems), so too is science fiction, set as it normally is in a future that does not yet fully exist. Science fiction is "a genre … in which the setting differs from our own world (e.g. by the invention of new technology, through contact with aliens, by having a different history, etc.), and in which the difference is based on extrapolations made from one or more changes or suppositions; hence, such a genre in which the difference is explained (explicitly or implicitly) in scientific or rational, as opposed to supernatural, terms" (Prucher 171).
<9> Consistent with these and other definitions (see footnote 7) is a setting in the near or far future with the presence of technology beyond our own [7]. These gadgets are “the icons of science fiction [which] are the signs that announce the genre, which warn the reader that this is a different world, and at the same time constitute the difference” (Gwyneth Jones 28). These “icons” include the spaceship, space habitats, artificial intelligence such as robots, androids (or “gynoids”), or cyborgs, as well as possible aliens, and, of course, advanced technologies. The In Death series shares all of these sci fi markers, but they normally provide the setting rather than the motivation of each novel. (Exceptions to the norm include Origin in Death, with the theme of genetic manipulation, and Fantasy in Death, based on VR, Virtual Reality.) The series extrapolates from the computer and smart phone of today to the “‘link” Robb’s characters use for communication. Eve and her colleagues drive, or direct, vehicles that function on normal asphalt roadways as well as in the air as kind of airbuses or hovercraft. Programmed droids serve as butlers and security guards. Eve purchases soy dogs rather than hot dogs, as meat is a rarity in the food substitute world of 2058. Though these futuristic, science fiction elements abound, they serve as background, setting, and color for narratives whose primary focus is mystery and romance. As Roberts/Robb says of her thinking as she invented the series,
<10> “This could be the twist. Not just a police procedural, not just a romantic suspense, but we have the Blade Runner type of future, and the continuing characters. So that you could peel it like an onion and keep coming back, but you have this world that’s just a little bit different from the world as it is now. And you show that a lot of it’s the same—human emotion and greed and love and murder and so forth remain. But the technology changes and some of the mores change…wouldn’t that be fun to explore? … I thought it would be fun to build this world and see the future as I sort of see it—you know, that a lot of things just don’t change. But the toys do!”(Burke 20).
<11> Robb’s use of science fiction settings provides the scaffolding on which she builds her blend of romance and detective drama, but the use of futuristic settings also allows her to modify traditional gender roles by extrapolation. The prostitute of today, for example, is the LC, or Licensed Companion, of 2058, with formal training in a respected profession and catering to both male and female clients.
The Detective Story
<12> The In Death series fits squarely in the tradition of the American school of the hard-boiled detective tradition rather than the British tradition of the classical puzzle. [8] The hard-boiled formula emerged in the 1920s in the United States with such authors as Dashiell Hammett, followed in the 1930s and 1940s by James M. Cain and the Anglo-American Raymond Chandler. The two models share several basic elements: the introduction of the detective; the presentation of the crime and accompanying clues; the process of the investigation of the crime; the announcement of the solution; the explanation of the solution; and the denouement (Cawelti, Adventure 82). The hard-boiled detective is less interested in the intellectual exercise of solving the puzzle and far more interested in the pursuit of justice, which may be interpreted according to the detective’s own moral code rather than the rules of society. Concomitant with the movement of the search for justice to the foreground and the search for the solution itself to the background of the action is the change from the classical parade of often false suspects, or red herrings, to “the substitution of a pattern of intimidation and temptation of the hero” (Cawelti, Adventure 142). Intimidation leads to more violence as well, making the hard-boiled novel grittier; the pleasant villages of Miss Marple are replaced by the modern city while the English gardens are replaced by urban chaos and corruption.
<13> The typical hard-boiled detective is a loner, a character on the margins of society, perhaps considered a failure by main-stream society, not financially solvent, and male. He is a man with his own code of honor; he cannot be tempted by wealth but he can be tempted by women, who in many cases turn out to be the criminal or in collusion with the criminal, such as Sam Spade in Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon or Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. With the advent of women detective writers and female detective characters — Kinsey Millhone of Sue Grafton’s “alphabet mysteries” and Sara Paretsky’s private investigator V.I. Warshawski , for example—the hard-boiled formula continues, but “males and females have been virtually interchangeable in the leading roles of the detective story genre” (Cawelti, Mystery 86). The new female detectives, like their male counterparts, tend to be loners; they have healthy sex lives but dysfunctional relationships. For the hard-boiled detective, male or female, the all-consuming nature of the job is poorly understood by outsiders and functions as an obstacle to healthy or permanent relationships. Robb’s Detective Eve Dallas exemplifies the conventional hard-boiled detective in some ways: she is a loner; her sex life is non-existent or focused on sex rather than a real relationship; and she is deeply dedicated to and consumed by her job and the pursuit of justice. But when she meets Roarke he counters all of her preconceptions, for her and for the readers of the series. Robb takes the rules of these three genres and bends them; she sees the limits of the forms and pushes them, if ever so gently and incrementally, to create a new form. Robb’s revisionist form echoes each of its parent forms, but Eve has taken on the traditional male detective role while resisting the conventional role of romance heroine. Roarke exemplifies the desirable male mate any normal romance heroine would want –he is wealthy, gorgeous, somewhat mysterious, and implicitly dangerous (like male protagonists of such classic Gothic romances as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre [1847]). On the other hand, Roarke simultaneously embodies traits of a female protagonist: he cooks, he tends to wounds, and he is kind and gentle when the occasion calls for it.
<14> Romance scholars characterize the J.D. Robb novels and novellas as “futuristic romantic suspense” (www.likesbooks.com) or as “futuristic romance,” a sub-category of “Alternative Reality” romance that includes Fantasy, Paranormal, and Time Travel (Romance Fiction: a Guide to the Genre). Bookstores shelve the In Death series under “Romance.” Both approaches to categorizing the In Death series concentrate primarily on the romance aspects of the work, and only secondarily on the elements of the mystery/detective genre. Critics tend to ignore the third genre, science fiction, which is a consistent, integral, and essential presence in the entire series.
J.D. Robb and the In Death series
<15> Although bookstores and critics classify the In Death series as Romance, the series simultaneously exemplifies and contests the conventions of the genre. The most visible evidence of Robb’s challenge to the form is the series itself. The standard arc of a romance works well for a single novel. As Nora Roberts comments, “what remains the constants are: They are one man, one woman love stories with emotional commitment, sexual tension, conflict and a happy ending” (Mussell, “Interview with Nora Roberts “ 157). With the successful resolution of problems and tensions and the coming together of the happy couple, often in marriage or with marriage just around the corner, the novel ends. As a result, the series is not common to the romance. Until the In Death series, this was true for Nora Roberts as well.
<16> Roberts has flirted with the detective genre upon occasion, most notably in her two-part D.C. Detective series, which includes Sacred Sins in 1987 and its sequel the following year, Brazen Virtue. Sacred Sins introduces Detective Ben Paris and psychiatrist Dr. Tess Court. There is the requisite sexual tension between the attractive doctor and the detective culminating with the “happy ending” of the pair coming together. Brazen Virtue brings back Detective Paris and Dr. Court, but the romance arc is played out between Ben’s partner, Detective Ed Jackson, and a new character, the famous mystery writer, Grace McCabe. Though some of Roberts’ readers claim that these two novels are not romances, but rather mysteries, and the plot is driven primarily by the elements of detective fiction outlined above, both novels follow the generic romance trajectory. As John Lennard observes: “romance novels are in their generic nature incapable of forming true series (with a running cast and constant locale), for each plot must drive to the protagonist’s tall, dark, & handsome union, after which new lovers-to-be are needed” (56). Here as Nora Roberts, the author reaffirms Lennard’s observation. She sustains a “series” of two by creating a new couple who overcome obstacles to arrive at an implied happy ending for the second novel. As J.D. Robb, the author both confirms and denies this dictum, adding new couples and their tensions to each subsequent novel or novella, but maintaining the romance arc of the central protagonists, Eve and Roarke.
<17> From the D.C. Detective novels, J.D. Robb incorporates the character of the calm, elegantly dressed psychiatrist, transformed in the In Death series into Dr. Charlotte Mira, happily married to Dennis. Robb follows the same pattern of developing secondary characters fairly typical of the detective series, but atypical for the romance genre, displacing the romance narrative to the secondary characters just as she does in Brazen Virtues. Ben and Tess have attained their happy ending in Sacred Sins; Ed and Grace must face and overcome their own conflicts to attain their own happy ending. In the In Death series one strategy Robb uses to remain within the conventions of the romance genre is to maintain two elements of the detective series: the “constant locale”—Manhattan in the near future of 2058 to 2060 (so far)—and “running cast” of the same protagonists—Eve and Roarke, while adding an ever-expanding cast of secondary characters who can carry the romance arc. The supporting cast allows Robb to continue with the “one man, one woman, happy ending” by developing the conventional arc for different sets of lovers. At the same time she defies romance conventions by maintaining and developing the romance between her two protagonists, even after their marriage, which is the normal “happy ever after” and thus the normal end to the arc. In so doing, she creates the series typical of detective fiction but quite atypical for the romance. [9] Each novel contains a crime to be solved and ends with the resolution of the mystery, fulfilling the requirements of the detective formula. Given that marriage, or at least union, is the desired outcome for a romance novel, the union and especially the marriage of Eve and Roarke would normally bring an end to the romance arc. Yet their story and their romance continue long after achieving the required “happy ever after” ending of the romance genre.
<18> The In Death series began with the 1995 publication of Naked in Death. J.D. Robb‘s Detective Eve Dallas seems to be the conventional hard-boiled character with a disheveled life and no personal relationships. She is a female Philip Marlowe— without the drinking and smoking— whose only focus is the job. Like all of the In Death novels (and novellas, with the single exception of “Missing in Death,” in The Lost), Naked in Death begins with two epigraphs relating to the narrative that follows and which prepare the reader to enter the world of the novel. These epigraphs serve as a brief preface, signaling the central themes and conflicts of the novel and in most cases connecting a popular genre to canonical literature such as Shakespeare, Yeats, Milton, and the Bible. For Naked in Death, Robb utilizes a quote from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “What’s past is prologue,” and “Violence is as American as cherry pie,” from RAP (Hubert Gerold) Brown, a Black Panther [10]. Violence is endemic to the detective genre, but Brown’s reference to “cherry pie” suggests a certain hominess—a hominess that quickly becomes ironic in the context of the plot, while Shakespeare’s reference to “the past” foreshadows the case Eve must investigate as well as her own life. The novel opens with what will become a leitmotif, Eve’s nightmares of frightening events in her childhood. On the day prior to the beginning of the novel, Eve killed a man, but too late to save the little daughter he had butchered in a drug-induced rage. The reader gradually discovers that when very young Eve was sexually and physically abused by her father. The first murder victim in this first novel, the licensed companion (or LC, a legally registered prostitute) Sharon DeBlass, was similarly sexually abused as a child by her grandfather, a Senator; he pays for her adult services and kills her when she threatens to reveal the truth about him and ruin his political career and his ambitions for the presidency. The “past” of each character’s sexual abuse as a child is the “prologue” to Eve becoming a cop with an urge for justice and a tendency to react personally to cases of rape or abuse, and to Sharon’s chosen profession and her death at her grandfather’s hands. In contrast, the hominess of Brown’s “cherry pie” ironically reveals the cozy family that neither woman has experienced.
<19> Eve killed a man, and like all cops responsible for a termination she is required to undergo a futuristic kind of “Testing” for emotional and psychological clearance. Part of Testing includes using a virtual reality helmet programmed with scenarios similar to the termination event. The patient—Eve—undergoes a brain scan and monitoring of vital signs while reacting to a distressing scenario quite similar to the termination event. From there Eve goes to a personal interview with the police psychiatrist, Dr. Mira. Through the interview we learn that Eve was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child and found abandoned at the age of eight. Even her last name comes from where she was found, wandering the streets in Dallas, Texas. Raised in a series of foster homes, she has no memory of the first eight years of her life, the years prior to being found. The details of her childhood are gradually discovered –by her and by the reader—over the course of many novels, primarily through the nightmares she suffers.
<20> Futuristic elements such as testing abound in the narrative from early on. Eve steps into the shower and tells it what temperature and force the water should be; she orders her breakfast from the AutoChef (“coffee, black; toast, light”); she sees an “airbus” hauling workers to their jobs, drinks “faux caffeine” while reading an article on “a mass recall of droid cocker spaniels.” She answers her “tele-link,” which gives her both image and sound. She conducts interviews personally rather than the usual protocol of assigning them to drones. She grabs a sandwich from a Glida-Grill, which is a moving food cart. People purchase “enhancements” such as body sculpting (breast augmentations and much, much more). Resorts are built “off-planet.” Guns have been outlawed since the Urban Wars of 2056. Testing, droids, and other advanced technologies may place the novel in a future not yet experienced by readers, typical of science fiction, but the narrative itself remains embedded in romance and detective fiction. Robb intertwines the three genres, fusing them into a single construction.
<21> As Eve investigates the first in a series of three murders, she begins to suspect the wealthy Roarke, who had dinner with the first victim, Sharon DeBlass, the night before her death. The generic romance formula is played out as their relationship develops. Their first meeting takes place at the victim’s funeral, where Eve watches him as a potential suspect: ” …then, without warning, he turned his head, looked five pews back across the aisle and directly into Eve’s eyes. It was surprise that had her fighting not to jolt at that sudden and unexpected punch of power. It was will that kept her from blinking or shifting her gaze.” (37). The involvement of the hard-boiled detective with a possible criminal is common to the detective genre, but more common is the femme fatale seducing the male detective. For example, Carmen Sternwood of The Big Sleep attempts to seduce Philip Marlowe and turns out to be the murderess. The possibility that Roarke may be implicated in the murder and that Eve would be duty-bound to investigate him stands as the first obstacle to their romance. Robb has reversed the gender roles here, the man (possibly the murderer) actively seducing the woman detective, defying and rewriting the conventions of gender common to the genre. Romance conventions compete with detective conventions: the standard (male) detective contemplates but resists the temptations of his seductress, just as Marlowe resists Carmen Sternwood. But Roarke seduces Eve, and she succumbs rather than resists, which is typical of the romance form. Robb twists the detective formula and intertwines romance elements to create a fusion of formulas.
<22> Eve and Roarke’s first shared glance sets the stage for the ongoing power struggle of two fiercely independent individuals. They are immediately attracted to each other, in part because each is very appealing physically: Eve with her whisky eyes and doe-colored tousled hair and Roarke with dark hair and vivid blue eyes, both of them slim and muscled. But beyond the physical attraction, each presents a puzzle to the other, a mystery to be solved. A steamy sex scene soon follows, even though Roarke has not been completely ruled out as a suspect. The conflict that the lovers must overcome is not the Cinderella story at all, in which the poor young woman of lower social class faces the obstacle of her prince’s wealth and status (Elizabeth Bennet to her Mr. Darcy). On the contrary, Eve is impressed by Roarke’s wealth, but covets nothing. In fact, rather than function as a source of attraction, his wealth might even be another obstacle to their relationship, since Robb characterizes Eve as an independent woman who avoids the beauty salon and clothing store, content to cut her own hair and wear a battled, sometimes blood-stained leather jacket of such questionable taste that Roarke’s butler handles it gingerly, with obvious distaste. The conflict may seem to be that he is a murder suspect and she is the investigating detective who crosses the line when she begins an affair with him, but the true conflict is one more characteristic of detective fiction rather than romance fiction: the all consuming nature of the job
<23> During this first novel in the series, the job—Eve’s job as investigating detective—is an initial obstacle to her obvious attraction to Roarke. Once their attraction is consummated, his status as a potential suspect leads to professional conflicts for Eve, and personal conflict with Roarke, whom she must interview just like any other murder suspect in order to clear him and prove that her lapse in professional conduct (sex with a suspect) does not threaten the case. By novel’s end the case is solved, Eve has defended herself against the true murderer, and much against her will Roarke is about to take her to the hospital for treatment (Eve’s dislike of medical care is a recurring theme in the series). In a state of shock and under the influence of pain medication, Eve says to Roarke: “You don’t really think we’re going to make anything out of this, do you? Roarke and the cop?” “I guess we’ll have to find out,” he replies (305-306). Contrary to the standard romance arc, Eve does not seek marriage, or a commitment, or the happy ending. Rather, she actively opposes, even fears, marriage and considers herself incapable of sustaining a true love relationship, much like the disheveled sleuths of the detective genre. Roarke demonstrates the nurturing behavior more often associated with women, and Eve the cautious, resistant attitude associated with men. Robb has re-envisioned gendered roles yet again, maintaining, yet transforming, many of the conventions of the detective and romance genres. The formula remains recognizable to readers, but its manifestations are re-gendered.
<24> The pattern of the police procedural remains constant throughout the series. A murder occurs; Eve and an ever-expanding cast of secondary characters investigate. Roarke is “the civilian” whose personal connections and knowledge of computers and other advanced technologies gradually involve him more and more with each of Eve’s cases. Indeed, some critics have commented that Eve and Roarke are a modern version of Nick and Nora Charles, the upper crust couple of The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (1934) whose popularity extended to a series of six films: The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936), Another Thin Man (1939), Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), The Thin Man Goes Home (1945), Song of the Thin Man (1947) (http://www.thrillingdetective.com/charles.html) But while Nora sips martinis Eve downs coffee. Nora is a rather flighty woman, a cheerful and elegantly dressed assistant to her husband Nick, while Eve is practical and ferocious, her clothing often blood-stained or torn.
<25> Another, perhaps more apt, comparison is with Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane of Dorothy Sayers’ detective novels. Though Sayers’ novels are from the British tradition rather than the American hard-boiled school, the couples’ relationships have much in common. Like Eve, Harriet is an independent woman who resists Lord Peter’s (courteous) advances, finally marrying him in the fourth of the five novels. In Strong Poison (1930), Harriet is on trial for the murder of her lover and Lord Peter investigates the case; the series continues with Have His Carcase (1932), and Gaudy Night (1936). In the fourth, Busman’s Honeymoon (1937) Harriet marries him. Like Eve, Harriet is intelligent and analytical; Lord Peter is attracted to Harriet precisely because she is unlike other women, which is most assuredly one of Eve’s attractions for Roarke, who has dated many women more socially appropriate for a billionaire bachelor, but far less interesting to him. Roarke proposes and urges marriage, but contrary to the patriarchal paradigm in which marriage is a woman’s principal goal, Eve resists. Eve does not want to lose her freedom and independence. She does not want to be “bought” by the billions of a rich man who can have anything and anybody he wants. Her attitude is completely antagonistic to commitment, and completely oppositional to the romance arc of finding the happy ever after ending in a loving union with the ideal man. Eve is simply not a normal romance heroine.
<26> In the second novel, Glory in Death, Roarke is again a suspect, but cleared early on. Eve goes to meet the real killer alone, slipping away from her first fancy party at Roarke’s palatial home, but Roarke follows and together they take down the killer. As they hobble away from the scene, Roarke says:
“’I want you to marry me’.” …’You want what?’ ‘I want you to marry me.’ He had a bruise on his jaw, blood on his coat, and a gleam in his eye. She wondered if he’d lost his mind. ‘We’re standing here, beat to shit, walking away from a crime scene where either or both of us could have bought it, and you’re asking me to marry you?’ He tucked his arm around her waist again, nudged her forward. ‘Perfect timing’” [he said] (296).
<27> Unlike the typical romance heroine, Eve has not sought marriage. Cinderella has run away from the ball in her beautiful gown, not because the clock will strike twelve and she will be revealed as the (public) servant she is but because she would rather not wear the gown. “I’d rather be dowdy and comfortable,” Eve tells Chief Tibble, after he compliments her on her “unprofessional” but elegant appearance at Roarke’s high society party (279-280). To Eve her job is paramount. In her pursuit of the murderer she, like Cinderella, loses one shoe, but she does not reply to Roarke’s proposal of marriage.
<28> The third novel, Immortal in Death, begins with wedding plans, from Eve’s perspective: “Getting married was murder. …Both careers—and from what she’d observed, marriage was a job—had impossible demands and hellish hours. It might have been 2058, an enlightened time of technological advancement, but marriage was still marriage. To Eve it translated to terror” (1). Eve’s worries about marriage weave throughout the plot of the case. She reconciles herself to the marriage by deciding it is not a formality, or a contract, but rather a promise, and she doesn’t break her promises (294). The usual roles have been reversed, with the woman fearful of marriage and the man eager for it. Eve is no woman looking for an “MRS”, the title of and identity as Mrs. Roarke; she remains Eve Dallas, tough NYPD detective, but also “Roarke’s cop,” as both his high roller business partners and former shady colleagues call her. As Eve, the tough New York street detective becomes part of Roarke’s elegant, wealthy world, his business associates, whether the current legitimate ones or his former shady, even perhaps criminal, associates, are stunned that he has married a cop, a tough woman with no culinary skills or interests, no concern for money, no interest in fashion, and a positive distaste for idle conversation and chit chat. In short, Eve is not “feminine” in a stereotypical romance way. Eve is the opposite of what everyone, including his dedicated butler, Somerset, expected for Roarke, who has “escorted women of unimpeachable breeding and pedigree” (Naked in Death 290). Yet Roarke sought her out: he seduces her with real coffee and real steak and sees that she receives medical care when needed. He nurtures her and respects her, and gradually his colleagues and associates learn to respect her and her commitment to justice as well.
<29> Indulgence in Death, the thirty-second installment in the series, takes place in 2060. Eve and Roarke are on vacation to celebrate the second anniversary of the marriage in 2058. The latest published title, Treachery in Death, references the previous one only by mentioning Eve’s fading tan. Specific aspects of the plot tie the entire series together —the relationship of Eve, Roarke, and the antagonism toward their fathers, for example— and exemplify Robb’s handling of the series and the three genres. Sci fi elements are present (Pepsi comes from the vending machine in a tube), but the focus is very much on the police procedural of investigating dirty cops.[11] Robb sustains the essential romance arc in two ways: she brings back two characters from earlier novels: Webster, an “IAB rat” (Internal Affairs Bureau) with whom Eve had sex, but not a relationship, long before she met Roarke, and Chief Daria Angelo, of Olympus, the off-planet resort Roarke owns. Webster and Angelo become the new romantic couple even as Robb maintains the romance between Eve and Roarke and Detectives Delia Peabody and Ian McNab. Though Eve and Roark are married “till death do us part” and constantly together “in death” in the series, the tensions and conflicts—and resolutions— conventional to the relationship crisis of the romance arc remain. In Treachery in Death, Eve wrestles with “the marriage rules” and her apparent inability to follow them. “According to the marriage rules, she needed to contact Roarke, give him her ETA” (23). Soon enough she “was focused on completing the work—and not on the marriage rules” (23). She and Roarke argue; Eve says she “suck[s] at this marriage thing,” and Roarke disagrees (50). Later each of them is “partially sorry” and they have erotic make up sex in their palatial gardens. The conflict is typical of the detective genre— Eve is so dedicated to the job that she sidelines her relationship—but the resolution returns to romance. Despite being together for over two years, despite being married, the central romance couple has the most erotic relationshipin the series.
<30> As the plot of Treachery in Death unfolds, Roarke takes the “normal” female role of nurturer, tending to the emotional and physical needs of Eve’s partner Delia and indeed of Eve’s whole team. Near the end of the novel Eve literally takes down a dirty cop, Renee Oberman, in hand to hand combat. The fight seems evenly matched until Renee pulls Eve’s hair. Offended and insulted by the unprofessional, girly nature of the attack, Eve takes over and wins the fight. Every cop in the room snaps to attention and salutes their valiant and honorable Lieutenant Dallas. Robb bends the gender roles typical of the detective and the romance novels. She transforms the iconic slug fest between the good guy and the bad guy into skilled combat between the honest cop and the dirty cop, both strong women.
<31> Eve needs medical attention, but as usual refuses. Through the course of thirty three novels Roarke has rarely managed to get Eve to a hospital or clinic, and then only when she is too drugged to notice. She tells Roarke: “’You can take me home and fix me up. Because at the end of the day you’re what does. You’re what fixes me up.’ ’Eve.’ He pressed his lips to her brown, held there a moment. Just held. ‘All right then. I’ll take you home, and I’ll fix you up’” (375). Roarke takes his battered, bloody wife home to tend to her, and fix her up. Gender roles are once again reversed: Eve is the tough guy, in contrast to the usual male, and Roarke is the nurturer, in contrast to the usual female.
A Fusion of Genders and Genres
<32> Throughout the In Death series J.D. Robb skillfully sustains the interest in her two protagonists, conforming to generic conventions of the detective story, adding elements of science fiction, adding romance arcs through additional characters, and drawing out the relationship of Eve and Roarke, covering a mere two years and a few months of their lives in “real time” in a series of thirty three novels and seven novellas published over the course of seventeen years. J.D. Robb is a serial writer, as befits the detective genre, while Nora Roberts is not, as befits a romance writer. Robb has commented that she “fell deeply in love with Eve and Roarke” and has “tremendous fun writing these books” (Mussell, “Interview” 158). The serial form and the futuristic setting allow Robb a freedom denied to Roberts. The series allows her to develop her characters deeply, to allow them a growth they would ordinarily be denied in any of the three genres, but particularly in the romance genre. The futuristic setting allows her to ignore the physics of 2011 and extrapolate to the technologies of 2058-2060. The sci fi setting gives Robb the freedom to restructure not only gender roles, but the entire society in which women and men function, creating the society of the future to meet her own ends. Social mores in Robb’s future include new roles for women and men: the Licensed Companion is a profession for either sex to serve as escort and/or sexual partner to members of either sex, while being a professional mother is a respected and remunerated position.
<33> Roberts/Robb has said that “character is the key of any novel” (Mussell, “Interview” 160), but in the In Death series, she goes a step further, commenting on both character development and the freedom the series offers her:
It’s incredibly satisfying and challenging to develop characters, events, relationships, a setting that will evolve over a long period of time rather than be set in one book, or a limited series. I enjoy, tremendously, discovering layers of Eve and Roarke, and the rest of the gang. And particularly exploring Eve and Roarke’s marriage, how this has changed both of them. An unlimited series gives me plenty of freedom to take my time with the characters, who they are, what they’re becoming, and how the dynamics between them shift (Schendel 7).
<34> Roarke and Eve achieve the “happy ever after” ending of the standard romance arc at the end of the third novel, Immortal in Death. Nonetheless, their romance arc has no visible end. In each of the thirty three novels in the series the two main protagonists face a murder mystery to be solved, and some kind of dilemma or conflict in their personal relationship. Together Eve and Roarke solve each murder or series of murders and together they survive their personal and professional battles, in the end always reconciling and reinforcing their love for each other.
<35> The In Death series rests on the intersection of three genres of popular fiction: the romance, the detective story, and science fiction. There are the requisite, often steamy, love scenes, but contrary to the standard romance arc in which union is the culmination of the romance, the protagonists progress from lovers to married lovers. Eve Dallas is the sturdy female cop who earns the respect of her peers through her strength, intelligence, and daring, while Roarke is the tasteful businessman who always finds time to be Nick to his Nora, or Lord Wimsey to his Harriet Vane, and has the talent and resources to assist every investigation. Robb simultaneously combines and challenges the conventions of these three popular genres, “compound[ing] Romance, Crime, and SF, fusing them all as mysteriously yet intelligibly as sodium and chlorine make common salt” (Lennard 81). Recognizable elements of romance, detective and science fiction are essential to each genre, whose very identity is determined by such elements. Robb maintains and sustains the genres contract: the futuristic, technology-based sci fi setting serves as setting and on occasion is principal to the plot, and all the formulaic elements of detective and romance fiction are recognizable. Rather than breaking the formula contract she revises and expands it to create a transformative genre of her own that rests upon foundational elements of three conventional genres. Blending these three genres together in a unique way allows Robb to subvert the gendered expectations of the formula fiction of the detective story and the romance, for both male and female characters. Yet in J.D. Robb’s In Death series genre elements are themselves subordinate to the development of the principal and secondary characters over time. And it is precisely the psychological growth of the characters that makes the series so compelling, and the readers so eager for the next installment in the life and love of Eve Dallas, crackerjack detective, and Roarke, her talented and beloved sidekick.
Notes
1 Nora Roberts is so prolific a writer that her editor asked her to consider writing under a pseudonym to reduce the stress on booksellers of the apparently endless stream of Roberts romances. Though she resisted for at least two years, her “agent explained it this way…there’s Pepsi, there’s Diet Pepsi, there’s Caffeine Free Pepsi. And the light went on in [her] head!” (BookBrowse, 4) Another version of this anecdote is told using the Coca Cola brand (The Official Nora Roberts Companion 286). Roberts, “the Joyce Carol Oates of the romance” eventually adopted the genderless pseudonym J.D. Robb, ironically from her gendered position as mother to her two sons, Jason and Daniel (Quinn 46).
2 Nora Roberts has published over two hundred books of fiction since her first publication in 1981, The Irish Thoroughbred. She has had 69 New York Times bestsellers, including five of her J.D. Robb novels. The now famous anecdote of how Nora Roberts began her astonishingly prolific career is this: A stay-at-home mom with two small children, Roberts had recently discovered category romance fiction, which was short enough for her to read while the boys napped. Then, in 1979, a serious snow storm hit the northeast; unable to leave home for several days, she began to write romances herself, publishing her first work in 1981. “I macraméd two hammocks. I needed help,” she said in an interview with Jan Burke (16).
Roberts has won many awards for her romance novels, including seven Golden Medallion Awards from 1983 -1989. Given by the Romance Writers of America, the GMA was renamed the RITA award after the RWA’s first President, Rita Clay Estrada. Roberts earned thirteen RITAs between 1992-2006, including two as J.D. Robb (Remember When, written with Nora Roberts, and Survivor in Death). In 2006-2007 she won three Quill Awards, a consumer-driven award program that existed from 2005-2008, when sponsorship ended (New York Times). For more information on Roberts’ phenomenal publishing record, see http://us.penguingroup.com/static/packages/us/noraroberts/facts.htm
For statistics on Romance literature generally see http://www.rwa.org/cs/the_romance_genre/romance_literature_statistics
3 Jameson, Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theory of Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. 135.
4 The Romance Writers of America non-profit organization was founded in 1980 by a group of thirty- seven romance writers (Nora Roberts among them) to promote their work. They have a Board of Directors, Six Region Directors for the United States, one hundred and twenty two U.S. chapters in forty four states and Washington, D.C., seven Canadian chapters, twenty one special interest chapters (e.g. Gothic Romance, Young Adult), and an annual conference with a hundred workshops for writers. The sub-genres are: historical romance, inspirational romance, novels with strong romantic elements, paranormal romance, Regency romance, and romantic suspense. (http://www.rwa.org/cs/romance_literature_subgenres)
5 The “Pamela formula” takes its name from Samuel Richardson’s Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded, published in 1740.
In his 2004 collection of essays, Cawelti comments on his own earlier work on the romance: “I myself look back somewhat guiltily to the mid-1970s when I called a book Adventure, Mystery, and Romance, but had almost nothing about romance in it” (Mystery, Violence, and Popular Culture 82).
6 Scholars disagree over the meaning of rape fantasies, with some claiming that until the Women’s Movement and the rise of rape crisis centers, the rape scene was really the only way for a woman to have, and enjoy, sexual intercourse outside the patriarchal dream of marriage. See Carol Thurston for discussion of these issues.
7 Though we have taken Prucher’s definition as most apt for this essay, science fiction has been variously defined or described as “genre fiction characterized by the narration of imaginative and speculative alternative worlds” (Stockwell 518), or by Darko Suvin, in a much-quoted statement, as "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment" (375). Ben Bova provides a simpler view: “science fiction is the literature of change. Each and every story preaches from the same gospel: tomorrow will be different from today” (13).
8 The origin of detective fiction is traced back to Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin trilogy: “Murders in the Rue Morgue " (1841), "Mystery of Marie Roget" (1842-43), and “The Purloined Letter" (1844). The Golden Age of the classical detective story is considered the 1920s and 1930s, as exemplified by the “puzzle” novels of the “Queens of Crime,” the three British writers Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh of New Zealand. Agatha’s Christie’s Miss Marple stories are an example from the Golden Age; more contemporary examples might be the knitting mystery novels of Maggie Sefton (Knit One, Kill Two) with Kelly Flynn, or Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series featuring Precious Ramotswe.
9 Linda Lael Miller is a well-known romance author who has a three-novel series, referred to as the “Look” series: Don’t Look Now (2003), Never Look Back (2004), and One Last Look (2006). The series follows “savvy attorney Clare Westbrook and sexy homicide detective Tony Sonterra” as they meet and have a steamy, tense affair (http://www.lindalaelmiller.com/books/look.asp). By the third novel, Clare is expecting Tony’s child and has accepted his proposal of marriage. Each novel deals with a separate crime, and the romance arc plays out in a typical manner, but stretched across three novels. Typical of romance, the story—and the series—ends with the imminent marriage of the two lovers.
10 Brown was very active in the civil rights movement, including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and later the sometimes violent Black Panthers. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Convicted of armed robbery, he was imprisoned in Attica for five years, where he converted to Islam, changing his name to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin.
11 Some critics and reviewers consider Treachery in Death the thirty-third title, counting Remember When as a title. Others consider only those novels with In Death in the title, so do not count Remember When or its reissue In Death segment, Big Jack, as part of the series. J.D. Robb’s website provides a pdf of a “Chronological List of In Death Series,” which includes Remember When but does not include Big Jack as a separate title. At the same website, the “Quick Reference List” lists neither Remember When nor Big Jack.
Works Cited
“An Interview with Nora Roberts.” http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=296 .
Asaro, Catherine. “A Quickie with Catherine Asaro on Feminism & romance.” http://www.likesbooks.com/quick16.html
Bova, Ben. “The Role of Science Fiction.” Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow. New York: Penguin, 1974. 3-14.
Burke, Jan. “Success in Death: An Interview with Nora Roberts aka J. D. Robb.” Mystery Scene 83 (12-1-2004): 16-21.
Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1976.
Cawelti, John G. Mystery, Violence, and Popular Culture. Madison: U Wisconsin P, 2004.
Cohn, Jan. Romance and the Erotics of Property. Durham and London, Duke UP, 1988.
Derrida, Jacques. The Law of Genre.” Critical Inquiry 7.1 On Narrative (Autumn 1980): 55-81.
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. “The Detective Novel of Manners.” Hamlet’s Mother and Other Women. New York: Ballantine books, 1990. 275-290.
Heinecken, Dawn. “Changing Ideologies in Romance fiction.” Romantic Conventions. Anne K. Kaler and Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek, editors. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular P, 1999. 149-172.
Jones, Gywneth. “The Icons of Science Fiction.” Imagination/Space: Essays and Talks on fiction, Feminism, Technology, and Politics. Seattle: Aqueduct P, 2009. 28-42.
Lennard, John. “Of Pseudonyms and Sentiment. Nora Roberts, J.D. Robb, and the Imperative Mood.” Of Modern Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction. Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007. 55-84.
Little, Denise, and Laura Hayden, eds. The Official Nora Roberts Companion. New York: Berkley Books, 2003.
Miller, Linda Lael. “Look Book Series”. http://www.lindalaelmiller.com/books/look.asp
Mussell, Kay. “Are Feminism & Romance Novels Mutually Exclusive? A Quickie with Kay Mussell” (November 1997) All About Romance: The Back Fence for Lovers of Romance Novels. http://www.likesbooks.com/mussell.html .
Mussell, Kay. “Interview with Nora Roberts.” Paradoxa 3.1-2 (1997):155-163.
Mussell, Kay. “Where’s Love Gone? Transformations in Romance Fiction and Scholarship.” Introduction to the special issue of ParaDoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres, “WHERE'S LOVE GONE?
TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE ROMANCE GENRE,” 3.1-2 (1997): 3-14.
Prucher, Jeff, ed. Brave New Word: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.
“Quill Awards are Ended.” Arts Briefly. The New York Times, February 27, 2008. Accessed 11/9/2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/arts/27arts-QUILLAWARDSA_BRF.html?_r=2&ref=arts&oref=slogin.
Quinn, Judy. “Nora Roberts: A Celebration of Emotions.” Publishers Weekly February 23, 1998, 46-47.
Radway, Janice A. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: U North Carolina P, 1984.
Ramsdell, Kristen. Romance Fiction: a Guide to the Genre. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1999.
Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2003.
Roberts, Nora. Brazen Virtue. New York: Bantam, 1988.
Roberts, Nora. Sacred Sins. New York: Bantam, 1987.
Roberts, Nora. “The Romance of Writing.” North American Romance Writers. Eds. Kay Mussell and Johanna Tuñon. Lanham, Maryland, and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1999, 198-201.
Romance Writers of America. http://www.rwanational.org/cs/home.
Schendel, Jennifer. “The Appeal of the Romance Series.” http://www.likesbooks.com/128.html#robb Pages 7-11.
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Reading Nora Roberts. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood P, 2010.
Stockwell, Peter. “Science Fiction.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Eds. David Herman, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan. London; New York: Routledge, 2005. 518-520.
Suvin, Darko. “On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre.” College English, 34l.3 (Dec., 1972): pp. 372-382.
Thurston, Carol. The Romance Revolution. Erotic Novels for Woman and the Quest for a New Sexual Identity. Urbana and Chicago: U Illinois P, 1987.
Vivanco, Laura, and Kyra Kramer. “There Are Six Bodies in This Relationship: An Anthropological Approach to the Romance Genre.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 1.1 (4 August 2010). The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. Web 3 August 2011. < http://jprstudies.org/>.
Wendell, Sarah, and Candy Tan. Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.
The In Death series
The novels and novellas in order of publication, with epigraphs and source authors as written in the novels/novellas themselves.
1995
#1 – Naked in Death
Epigraphs:
“What’s past is prologue.” —William Shakespeare
“Violence is as American as cherry pie.” —Rap (Hubert Gerold) Brown
#2 – Glory in Death
Epigraphs:
“Fame then was cheap . . . And they have kept it since, by being dead.” —Dryden
“Chok’d with ambition of the meaner sort.” —Shakespeare
1996
#3 – Immortal in Death
Epigraphs: “The fatal gift of beauty.” —Byron“Make me immortal with a kiss.” —Christopher Marlowe
#4 – Rapture in Death
Epigraphs: “But I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own Executioner.”— John Donne“There is rapture on the lonely shore.” —Lord Byron
1997
#5 – Ceremony in Death
Epigraphs:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” —Shakespeare
“We may no pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.” —Mark Twain
#6 Vengeance in Death
Epigraphs:
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” –Romans 12:19
“Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand.” —Shakespeare
1998
#7 Holiday in Death
Epigraphs:
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” –Yeats
“Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.” –Alfred Emanuel Smith
Midnight in Death, novella in Silent Night*
Epigraphs:
“The year is dying in the night.” –Tennyson
“The welfare of the people is the chief law.” —Cicero
1999
#8 Conspiracy in Death
Epigraphs:
“All men think all men mortal but themselves.” –Edward Young
“Let us hob-and-nob with Death.” –Tennyson
#9 Loyalty in Death
Epigraphs:
“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods: They kill us for their sport.” –Shakespeare
“Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.” –Jonathan Swift
2000
#10 Witness in Death
Epigraphs:
“The play’s the thing.” –Shakespeare
“This reasonable moderator and equal piece of justice, Death.” –Sir Thomas Browne
#11 Judgment in Death
Epigraphs:
“The vices of authority are chiefly four: delays, corruption, roughness and facility.” –Francis Bacon
“More things belong to marriage than four bare legs in a bed.” –John Heywood
2001
#12 Betrayal in Death
Epigraphs:
“Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer.” –Robert Burton
“Honour is sometimes found among thieves.” –Sir Walter Scott
Interlude in Death, novella in Out of This World*
Epigraphs:
“Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain.” Aristotle
“Happy is the child whose father goes to the devil.” –Sixteenth-century proverb
#13 Seduction in Death
Epigraphs:
“True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.” –William Shakespeare
“Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword.” –Oscar Wilde
2002
#14 Reunion in Death
Epigraphs:
“There are some meannesses which are too mean even for man—woman, lovely woman alone, can venture to commit them.” –W. M. Thackery, A Shabby Genteel Story
“The surest poison is time.” –Emerson
#15 Purity in Death
Epigraphs:
“we bow our head before Thee, and we laud And magnify they name Almighty God! But man is thy most awful instrument In working out a pure intent.” –William Woodsworth
“In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolv’d to ruin or to rule the state.” —John Dryden
2003
#16 Portrait in Death
Epigraphs:
“The light of the body is in the eye.” –New Testament
“A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive.” –Samuel Coleridge
#17 Imitation in Death
Epigraphs:
“No man every yet became great by imitation.” –Samuel Johnson
“And the Devil said to Simon Legree: ‘I like your style, so wicked and free.’” –Vachel Lindsay
#18 Remember When, a novel by Nora Roberts and her alter ego, J.D. Robb, with Detective Eve Dallas of the In Death series. The first part of the story takes place in the present; the Detective Dallas portion takes place in the future, the 2059 of the In Death series. Later released in 2010 as Hot Rocks by Nora Roberts and Big Jack by J. D. Robb.
Epigraphs to Part One:
“Covetous of others’ possessions, he was prodigal of his own.” Sallust
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” –Lewis Carroll
Epigraphs to Part Two:
“All things change; nothing perishes.” –Ovid
“Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways.” –William Shakespeare
2004
#19 Divided in Death (first hardcover)
Epigraphs:
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever.” –William Shakespeare
“Marriage is a desperate thing.” –John Selden
#20 Visions in Death
Epigraphs:
“Friendship cannot live without ceremony, nor without civility.” –Lord Halifax
“Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?” –William Shakespeare
2005
#21 Survivor in Death
Epigraphs:
“So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, An Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.” –William Shakespeare
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” –Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi
#22 Origin in Death
Epigraphs:
“Blood is thick than water.” –John Ray
“There will be time to murder and create.” –T. S. Eliot
2006
#23 Memory in Death
Epigraphs:
“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children she didn’t know what to do; She gave them some broth without any bread; She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.” –Nursery rhyme
“Memory, the warder of the brain.” –William Shakespeare
Haunted in Death, novella in Bump in the Night*
Epigraphs:
“There nearly always is method in madness.” –Chesterton
“There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this.” –Shakespeare
#24 Born in Death
Epigraphs:
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” –Revelation
“Love begets love.” —Robert Herrick
2007
#25 Innocent in Death
Epigraphs:
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” –Henry Adams
“As innocent as a new-laid egg.” –W. S. Gilbert
Eternity in Death, novella in Dead of Night
Epigraphs:
“The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out, At one stride comes the dark.” –Coleridge
“Whene and what art thou, execrable shape?” – John Milton
#26 Creation in Death
Epigraphs: “Ah! The clock is always slow; It is later than you think.”— Robert W. Service“And music pours on mortals Her magnificent disdain.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
2008
#27 Strangers in Death
Epigraphs:
“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes
“One cannot be in two places at once.” –Seventeenth-century proverb
#28 Salvation in Death
Epigraphs: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” –Matthew 7:15
“The faith that looks through death.” –William Wordsworth
Ritual in Death, novella in Suite 606
Epigraphs:
“One owes respect to the living; to the dead one owes only the truth.” –Voltaire
“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” –Joseph Conrad
2009
#29 Promises in Death
Epigraphs:
“Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world.” –Willa Cather
“A little more than kin, and less than kind.” –William Shakespeare
#30 Kindred in Death
Epigraphs:
“Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail!” –James Thomson
“A lie which is half a truth is every the blackest of lies.” –Tennyson
“Missing in Death,” novella in The Lost
Epigraphs: None
2010
#31 Fantasy in Death
Epigraphs: “Which would you rather be—A conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier who proclaims who are the conquerors?” –Plutarch
“True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.” –William Shakespeare
#32 Indulgence in Death
Epigraphs:
“Thou shalt not covet; but tradition approves all forms of competition.” –Arthur Hugh Clough
“It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.” –Logan Pearsall Smith
“Possession in Death,” a novella in The Other Side
Epigraphs:
“Love is strong as death.” –Song of Solomon
"Whene and what art thou, execrable shape?” –John Milton
2011
#33 Treachery in Death
Epigraphs:
“There is no such thing in man’s nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.’ –Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.” –Robert Burns
#34 New York to Dallas, forthcoming September 2011
“Chaos in Death,” novella in The Unquiet, scheduled for release in October 2011
*Republished in 2008 as Three in Death
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