Naked in Death

The first installment in J.D. Robb's long-running In Death series is set in New York City in the year 2058, a world where guns have been banned for decades, prostitution is legal and regulated, and police officers carry stunners instead of firearms. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a 10-year veteran of the New York Police and Security Department, is a driven, solitary woman haunted by a childhood she cannot remember. Found beaten and abandoned in a Dallas alley at age eight, she has no memory of her first years, no knowledge of her birth name, and no family. She has built her identity entirely around being a cop.

Eve is assigned as primary investigator on a new homicide under Code Five conditions, meaning she reports only to her commanding officer, Commander Whitney, with no press cooperation or interdepartmental reports. The victim is Sharon DeBlass, a 24-year-old licensed companion (the legal term for a regulated prostitute) and the granddaughter of Senator DeBlass, a powerful conservative politician from Virginia. Sharon lies naked on her bed, shot three times with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, a type of antique weapon that has not been manufactured since the gun ban passed around 2023. The killer left the gun at the scene, wiped every surface of fingerprints, erased nearly three hours of the building's security footage, and placed a note beneath the body reading "ONE OF SIX."

Captain Ryan Feeney, Eve's former partner now heading the Electronic Detection Division, assists on the case. Eve interviews Sharon's beauty consultant, Sebastian, who reveals that Sharon had recently become interested in Roarke, an enigmatic Irish-born billionaire with holdings in real estate, manufacturing, and entertainment. Roarke also owns the Gorham Complex where Sharon was murdered, giving him knowledge of and access to the building's security systems. He is a licensed collector of antique weapons and an expert marksman. Eve opens a suspect file, and her computer calculates a high probability that Roarke is the perpetrator.

Yet from their first encounter at Sharon's funeral, Eve finds herself intensely drawn to Roarke. He cooperates willingly, inviting her to examine his weapon collection and answering her questions with disarming candor. He sends her a bag of real coffee, an extraordinarily expensive luxury in a world of synthetic substitutes, demonstrating he knows exactly how to reach her. Their mutual attraction builds through a series of encounters charged with tension between Eve's professional obligations and her personal feelings.

Meanwhile, the killer taunts Eve directly, delivering a recording of Sharon's murder to her apartment. A second murder follows within days. Eighteen-year-old Lola Starr, a newly licensed companion, is killed in the same pattern: three gunshot wounds, body arranged on the bed, an antique weapon left at the scene, and a note reading "TWO OF SIX."

Eve's investigation unfolds on multiple fronts. She learns that Sharon kept diaries and used them to blackmail prominent figures. Searching under an alias based on Sharon's mother's maiden name, Eve finds a hidden safe-deposit box containing a blackmail list with names and payment amounts, including Chief of Police Simpson at $100,000 per year. Senator DeBlass exerts political pressure to control the investigation, using Simpson and his aide Derrick Rockman to monitor Eve's movements and undermine her work.

Eve and Roarke's relationship crosses professional boundaries when they sleep together. The encounter is transformative for Eve, who has always kept sex impersonal and controlled. Simpson, already compromised by the blackmail connection, uses Eve's involvement with Roarke as ammunition to discredit her and the investigation.

A third victim, Georgie Castle, a 53-year-old licensed companion, is murdered in the same pattern. The weapon left at this scene, a Ruger P-90, is traced to a purchase at Sotheby's registered under Roarke's name. Eve recognizes this as a plant: The purchase was made by untraceable electronic bid and anonymous cash transfer, methods Roarke never uses. His alibi is confirmed when Eve contacts him on FreeStar One, a space station where he is conducting business. Dr. Mira, the department psychiatrist, delivers a profile confirming with high probability that the killer would not make such a careless mistake. Roarke is formally cleared.

Eve persuades Roarke to use his unregistered computer system to access Simpson's hidden Swiss bank accounts, exposing over $2 million in undisclosed assets with withdrawals matching Sharon's blackmail records. She arranges for the information to be transmitted anonymously to reporter Nadine Furst, and Simpson is called in for questioning.

The case breaks open when Eve receives a frantic call from Virginia. Congresswoman Catherine DeBlass, the senator's daughter, reveals that her father sexually abused her throughout her childhood and did the same to Sharon. Sharon eventually turned the abuse back on DeBlass, charging him for sex and threatening to publish her diaries. After Sharon's murder, DeBlass threatened Catherine's young son to ensure her silence.

Charles Monroe, Sharon's neighbor and fellow licensed companion, provides another crucial piece: Years earlier, Sharon asked him to co-sign for a safe-deposit box under a false name. Feeney retrieves the contents and finds approximately 20 years of Sharon's diaries. The final entry, logged the morning of her murder, documents Sharon's midnight appointment with "the senator" and her plan to torment him. Commander Whitney authorizes a warrant, and Eve arrests DeBlass on the Senate floor for three counts of murder and the rapes of Catherine and Sharon.

On the flight back, Eve confesses her deepest secret to Roarke: Her father raped her as a child, she was found in an alley at age eight, and she has no memory of her life before that.

DeBlass's lawyers secure his release pending trial. Before Eve can resume interrogation, Rockman appears in her apartment with an antique Colt .45, revealing the full truth. DeBlass killed Sharon on impulse during a visit, but Rockman cleaned the scene, wiped the evidence, doctored the security footage, and conceived the entire cover-up. Rockman then independently murdered Lola Starr and Georgie Castle, choosing them at random to create a serial killer pattern that would obscure the personal motive behind Sharon's death. His larger goal was to protect DeBlass's path to the presidency, with himself as the power behind the office. Rockman tells Eve that DeBlass has committed suicide on his counsel and that he intends to kill Eve and two more women to complete the pattern of six.

Eve surreptitiously activates her recorder and tele-link to transmit to Cop Central, the police headquarters. When Rockman orders her to strip, she refuses. Georgie's cat, which Eve has been keeping, wanders into the room and startles Rockman for a critical instant. Eve attacks. During the brutal fight, a shot grazes her arm and she takes severe blows, but she beats Rockman into submission. Feeney, who heard the transmission, arrives with officers and Roarke, who has come to the building with a gift of coffee. Rockman is arrested for the murders of Starr and Castle, the attempted murder and attempted rape of Eve, and breaking and entering. DeBlass's death is confirmed as suicide.

Eve names the cat Galahad for saving her life. Roarke carries her out, determined to get her medical care despite her protests, with the cat at his feet and a promise that there will be no nightmares tonight.