J.D. Robb's Promises in Death

Eve Dallas' Emotional Growth Highlighted Through Friendship Theme

Apr 21, 2009

By employing a friendship theme to highlight Eve Dallas' emotional growth, Nora Roberts again uses her J.D. Robb In Death series to develop her central character.

Both the tragic and the comic elements of Promises in Death, the first 2009 title to appear in the J.D. Robb In Death series, focus on the theme of friendship. This series, pseudonymously written by Nora Roberts, emphasizes the development of its central character, Eve Dallas, from emotional isolation to an often perplexed involvement in a growing number of friendships. In Promises in Death her friendship with Li Morris, chief medical examiner, is complicated by the murder of Morris’s lover, Amaryllis Coltraine.

Summoned to the site of a possible homicide, New York Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas identifies the victim as fellow police detective Amaryllis Coltraine, who has been shot with her own weapon. Eve has had a long friendship with Coltraine’s lover, Chief Medical Examiner Li Morris, whom she informs of the death.

Suspecting at first that Coltraine had been murdered by one of her own colleagues, Eve also discovers a connection between Coltraine and Max Ricker. Ricker’s involvement in Eve’s own past and that of her husband, Roarke, resulted in his imprisonment in Judgment in Death (2000).

Eve soon receives an anonymous package containing Coltraine's badge and weapons. The text disc that is included threatens Eve's life, too.

At home Eve faces a horror of a lighter sort. The deadline for a dreaded bridal shower she has agreed to host for another friend, Louise Dimatto, rapidly approaches.

Friendship and Emotional Growth

Friendship provides the common theme that unites the tragedy of Coltraine’s death with the comic subplot of the bridal shower. Roberts uses this theme as an indicator of Eve’s emotional growth.

Naked in Death (1995), the series opener, introduced Eve as a loner whose only friends were her mentor, Captain Ryan Feeney, and Mavis Freestone, a former petty thief whom Eve had arrested eight years earlier. In Promises in Death, the guest list for the bridal shower and the bachelor party Roarke hosts showcases the growing number of people with whom Eve has since become emotionally involved.

Eve Makes Promises

Eve’s friendship with Morris centers the novel. Describing her response to telling him of Coltraine’s death, Eve says, “It made me sick inside, just sick to knock on his door. To know I was about to break a friend in two.” Later, Eve disregards protocol by promising to keep Morris informed of the truth she uncovers in her investigation.

Eve had remained distant from Coltraine during Coltraine's life because she considered her as an interloper in Eve's own friendship with Morris. However, in a series of dreams Eve has of Coltraine after her death, Coltraine too acquires the status of friend.

Eve has always viewed her job as finding justice for victims. Eve promises that outcome to Coltraine in one dream in which they meet in the morgue. “I don’t want to stay here,” Coltraine tells Eve. Eve replies, “They’re going to let you go soon.”

“Do you think that any of us go anywhere until we have the truth? Do you think there’s peace without justice?" Coltraine questions. “No, I don’t,” Eve responds. “You won’t stay here. You’ve got my word. I promise you, you won’t stay here.” Justice for the victim is Eve's ultimate promise.

About Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts has written over 100 romantic suspense novels, many of which have had film adaptations. Her In Death series, begun in 1995, was published under her J.D. Robb pseudonym.

Fans of the In Death series have provided a very extensive website which includes detailed information on all series titles.

The copyright of the article J.D. Robb's Promises in Death in Detective Fiction is owned by Carol Thomas. Permission to republish J.D. Robb's Promises in Death in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.