u/jaylee_g

Just finished a reread of Survivor because it had been too long. Maybe it’s the mom in me, but I have a harder time with the books that depict child death or brutalization, so I usually skip those books when I do my In Death rereads (I have a similar reaction to New York to Dallas for all the fact that I consider it an essential read for this series and one of the best written books in the series), but it had been awhile so I decided to give it another go.

Since Survivor is not part of my usual reread rotation, I had completely forgotten about this scene between Eve and Whitney:

“I’ll put it away. There isn’t an officer in my division or in this department who should trust me if I can’t. Or don’t. I understood that I’d face this when I accepted the promotion to lieutenant. I understand that I’ll be here again, with the faces of men I know on my board.”
“You should be captain,” he said, and she said nothing. “You know there are reasons, mostly political, why you haven’t yet been offered the opportunity to test for a captaincy.”
“I know the reasons, sir, and accept them.”
“You don’t know them all. I could push it, push the chief, call in some markers.”
“I don’t want markers called in on my account.”
He smiled a little. “Markers are made to be called in. But I don’t—not yet—because, frankly, Dallas, I’m not ready to have one of my best street cops riding a desk. And you’re not ready to comfortably ride one.”
“No, sir. I’m not.”
“We’ll both know when you are. Good coffee,” he said and took another swallow. “I’ll see you in the ready room.”

We know what ‘factors’ Eve knows of that prevented the offer of Captaincy early on in the series because Tibble, in a fit of pique, leveled them at her in Purity, which was mainly her marriage to Roarke.

Wondering what the factors she doesn’t know were?

Regardless we know she was officially offered the captaincy in Thankless so whatever those factors were, they were resolved, but anyone got any thoughts on the (political, apparently) factors she doesn’t know (at this point in the series)?

So I wrote and posted this on a FB In Death group a few weeks back, but thought I’d post it here in case anyone not on FB is interested. I was attempting to put into cohesive thought why I’m so fascinated by this character.

*****

In 1943 Abraham Maslow posited a revolutionary theory still used, studied (and expanded on) to this day for understanding human motivation and cognition: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In it he proposed that human motivation and cognition followed a pyramid formation. At the bottom of the pyramid are basic necessities: food, water, shelter. All of these had to be obtained before a person could securely move to the next level of the pyramid: safety and security. Once safety and security are achieved comes the next level up: love and belonging. From there, the second to last level: self-esteem. And from there the final tier: self-actualization.

The character of Eve Dallas follows this psychological model to a T, giving us, her readers, a prime example of a character crafted by an author who’s adept care, research, and very skilled hand molded a character that hits, rather brilliantly, as much on a philosophical and psychological level as she does an entertaining one.

In Eve’s early childhood not even the most basic and fundamental level of the pyramid was being met. She was denied all: food, water and barely had adequate shelter as she remembered being extremely cold throughout her youth. In order to break her, Richard Troy, her biological father, did not afford her even the most basic of human necessities.

Excerpt from Immortal in Death:

“Cold,” she murmured. “He’d broken the temperature control, and it was cold. I could see my breath.” She shivered in reaction. “But I was hungry, too. I got something to eat. He never kept much around. I was hungry all the time. I was cutting the mold off some cheese when he came in.”…

…“He got mad because I’d been eating. I wasn’t supposed to take anything without asking.”

Excerpt from Reunion in Death:

“It’s cold. Climate control’s broken. It’s so cold it hurts my bones. There’s no hot water and I hate washing in the cold...

…“Not supposed to touch anything. Not supposed to eat unless he says so. He forgot to feed me again. There’s cheese. It’s green, but if you cut that off, it’s okay. Maybe he won’t know if I have just a little. He’ll hit me if he finds out, but he’ll hit me anyway, and I’m so hungry. I forget I’m not supposed to eat because I want more. I want more. Oh God, God, he’s coming.”

She was even given material possessions for the sheer sake of having them taken away from her or destroyed in front of her eyes.

Excerpt from Echoes in Death:

“I honestly don’t remember the first time he hit me. Couldn’t say whether it’s buried or blurred, or if I was just too young to retain it. But I remember how he sometimes brought me something, some toy. He’d say things like I had to be good, had to do as I was told—always—so he wouldn’t have to punish me. Then he’d take it away or break it because—he said—I’d done something wrong.”…

…“The only one I clearly remember, probably because I really liked it, was this little music box thing with this ballet girl inside who’d twirl around when you opened it. Sometimes if I couldn’t sleep, I’d open it up, listen to it, watch the girl. Sort of, I guess, imagine being happy enough to twirl around. And one night he came in, raging, busted it to pieces, whaled on me pretty good.”

This sort of abuse, intentional, cruel and horrific, unfortunately did not end with Richard Troy.

Enter Trudy Lombard, Eve’s first foster mother, stage left.

Excerpts from Memory in Death:

“I know the pathology now, but I wasn’t even nine. When she told me I was filthy and made me wash in cold water every morning, every night, I didn’t understand. She always looked so sad, so disappointed. If she locked me in the dark, she said it was only to teach me to behave. Every day there were punishments. If I didn’t eat everything on my plate, or I ate it too fast, too slow, I’d have to scrub the kitchen with a toothbrush. Something like that.”…

…“She didn’t have domestics. She had me. I was always too slow, too stupid, too ungrateful, too something. She’d tell me I was pathetic, or I was evil, and always in this soft, kindly voice with this look of puzzled disappointment on her face. I was still nothing. Worse than nothing.”…

…”Hoodlums. Delinquents. Vandals. And worse. And you, nothing but a slut. Nine years old and already putting out. That’s nothing new for you, is it? Get upstairs, and you can forget about supper. I don’t feed trash in my house”…

…”She sat again. “She was one of us,” Eve continued. “And we didn’t get the good stuff. Handouts, hand-me-downs. Crumbs from the table when everyone else is having a big, fat slab of cake.””

These experiences left such a psychological imprint on Eve that even more than a year after meeting Roarke, where all her basic necessities were being met and then some, Eve was still transitioning between the first and second tier of Maslow’s pyramid. She could not fathom the importance of something indulgent, like diamonds, because it wasn’t a basic necessity.

Excerpt from Big Jack:

“Eve studied the window displays as she spoke, and the people who stopped to huddle at them, dreaming over that shine. Gold and silver—metals; rubies and emeralds, and diamonds bright as the sun—stones. Since they couldn’t be consumed for fuel, didn’t keep you warm in the winter, it was tough for her to relate to the pull.”

The other issues plaguing Eve, preventing her from transitioning to higher levels of the pyramid, was the fact that her various abuses left her with a horrific case of PTSD. Eve has, at various points throughout the books, exhibited each and every symptom of PTSD.

List of PTSD symptoms from CAWC (Connections for Abused Women and their Children):

• Flashbacks or nightmares
• Avoidance of reminders of the trauma
• Intense anxiety or panic attacks
• Hypervigilance and exaggerated startle responses
• Emotional numbness or disconnection from others

From physically throwing up the contents of her stomach in Naked in Death after confronting another family abuse case that mirrored, in part, some of her own abuses (aka she experienced an intense anxiety driven physiological response, aka a panic attack)…

Excerpt from Naked in Death:

“Sheer force of will kept her steady until she got to the plane. It kept her voice flat and expressionless as she reported in to her superior. Then she stumbled, and shoving away from Roarke’s supporting arms, rushed into the head to be wretchedly and violently ill. On the other side of the door, Roarke stood helplessly. If he understood her at all, it was to know that comforting would make it worse. He murmured instructions to the flight attendant and took his seat. While he waited, he stared out at the tarmac. He looked up when the door opened. She was ice pale, her eyes too big, too dark. Her usually smooth gait was coltish and stiff. “Sorry. I guess it got to me.””

An action repeated in Brotherhood in Death (re: throwing up after watching a rape on tape, ergo experiencing an intense physiological response)…

Excerpt from Brotherhood In Death:

“I don’t get to choose.” Her voice shook. She fought to steady it. “I don’t get to choose,” she repeated. “I have to do— God, I’m sick.” She ran out, dropped to the floor in the nearest powder room. Her stomach pitched out the vile and bitter until all that remained was the raw.”

To the nightmares that plagued her regularly throughout most of the books…

Excerpt from Vengeance in Death:

“When her restless movements woke him, Roarke reached for her. She struggled away, her breath coming in quick little gasps. He knew she was trapped in a nightmare where he couldn’t go, couldn’t stop the past from cycling back.

“It’s all right, Eve.” He gathered her close even as she fought to twist free with her body shuddering, jerking, shuddering.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t.” There was a plea in her voice and the voice was thin and helpless, a child’s voice that broke his heart.

“You’re safe. I promise.” He stroked her back, in slow and soothing motions, when at last she turned to him. Turned into him.

“He can’t hurt you here,” Roarke murmured as he stared into the dark. “He can’t touch you here.””

To avoiding the city of Dallas intentionally until she was forced to go there for a case (Reunion), to her extreme hypervigilance and her life-long disconnection from others. All of these symptoms have been exhibited by Eve in the In Death books, making the diagnosis of PTSD pretty clear-cut. It’s obvious that Nora did her research.

One of the absolute marvels of the Eve Dallas character, however, is that gradually, slowly, and with the adept hand of her author, she has transitioned into the higher tiers of human motivation.

In fact, I would argue that right now, currently, in the books she’s transitioning between love and belonging to self-esteem.

Excerpts from Innocent in Death and Stolen in Death, wherein Eve faced off against the same antagonist, to compare/contrast an earlier book (24) to the latest book (62):

Innocent:

“She drew in what little she had and turned to face him. “No. No, I don’t believe you’d betray me with her. I don’t believe you’d cheat on me. But I’m afraid, and I’m sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.”

Stolen:

“I don’t need your reassurance.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.” She struggled for calm, then repeated, “No. I’ve never understood why you wanted me, why you love me. But I know you do. I don’t need you to tell me what we have is more important, more real, more everything than whatever you had with her. Because I know it is. She’s also everything I’m not, and that can be a hard swallow.”

“She’s cold, careless with people, incapable of putting anyone above herself, without a single ounce of loyalty. Yes, everything you’re not.” It struck him, amazed him. “Here you are, such a sharp cop, with instincts and insights that often seem preternatural. And you think she wanted to hurt you because you were less than she is? Christ Jesus, Eve, she wanted to hurt you because she knew you’re so much more.”…

Innocent:

“Eve told her some of it. The red dress, the look she’d caught in Roarke’s eyes, the meeting in her office, and so on.

“Uber bitch came there to flip you.”

“Yeah, she did.” Knowing it, Eve thought, didn’t make it better. “Mission accomplished.”

Stolen:

…“Interpol and Scotland Yard think otherwise. Anything you accuse him of, I’ll hang on you.” She leaned in. “You should believe me, you should know I’m really good at this, and I’ll make sure decades are added to what you’ll already pay.”

She sat back. “You really never knew him. Do you think he left a single bread crumb? Anywhere, anytime?”

“You’d risk that?”

“It’s not a risk because I do know him.”…

Innocent:

“It’s not jealousy. I wish it were. I wish it were that stupid, that shallow, that definitive. But it’s not jealousy. It’s fear.” She dropped down in her chair again as her voice began to crumble. “It’s fear.””

Stolen:

…“Eve.” She’d given him privacy, and trust, keeping clear so he could say what he needed to say without her listening.”

The confidence she now has as exhibited in Stolen shines through: in her skills as an investigator and in Roarke’s love. A direct contrast to the Eve Dallas we knew in Innocent in Death where her self-esteem was at a low point. Those two books, comparatively, one earlier in the series, and the other the latest available, give a stunningly vibrant example of character growth and transformation.

And while human motivation and that ever important journey to self-actualization is a wonderful and poignant overall theme, it’s not the only reason Eve Dallas is such a special character.

Her theme is also one of healing, from where we first met her: a brilliant, but lost and lonely woman, struggling and failing to repress the ghosts of the past and verging on burnout…

Excerpt from Seduction in Death:

“There was never anybody before you,” she said. “I just wanted to say that. And when I did what I do, and it opened a crack in me like it did last night, there was nobody there to hold on to me. I didn’t want anyone to hold on to me. Until you. And I got through and I got by, and it was okay. But I think, maybe, if I’d just kept getting through and getting by, I’d have come to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. And if I couldn’t do it anymore, it’d be the end of me, Roarke.” She took a steadying breath. “So when you hold on to me, you’re helping me stand up, one more time. And the dead, you’re standing for them, too. I just wanted to say that.””

To absolute confidence and the ever-expanding ability to love and be loved despite the horrors that were done to her…

Excerpt from Stolen:

“He sat a moment, in wonder that this fascinating, often frustrating, equally flabbergasting woman had come to be his. “I love you, beyond reason.”

Her lips curved as she turned them up to his. “We’ve got reasons.””

And it’s lovely.

Excerpt for Fury is up on Nora’s blog.