Survivor in Death

Honestly there is not a lot to say here except that this is one of my favorite "In Death" books. There are a couple of scenes that I found too outrageous to be believed (the ending with Nixie), anyone allowing Dallas to take a kid to live with her and Roarke instead of having her in foster care, etc. But I found that there were some wonderful callbacks to earlier cases that Eve had worked.

"Survivor in Death" opens up on a loving and happy family being murdered in their beds. Nixie Swisher, who is 9, ends up being the lone survivor. Due to Dallas and company not knowing why the Swisher's were attacked and if someone out there may be looking to finish the job with Nixie, Nixie is then moved in temporarily with Eve and Roarke.

We actually show more in this book get to see how would Eve be with a child of her own (honest, probably to a fault, still loving, but not outwardly so) and we get to see how much Roarke desires to one day have children (yep plural) with Dallas. And I can honestly see how easily a child could fit seamlessly in both of their lives. Heck, if you don't think Roarke would not be a stay at home dad and or taking the kids to work with him, you have not read an "In Death" book before. I can also see Summerset happily babysitting whenever they needed him to.

We do get several moving scenes in this one (seriously have a box of tissues nearby) and I did cry a few times while reading. This book brings up a lot of memories for Roarke and Summerset (we all know that Summerset's daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered) and Summerset especially becomes more developed in this one. The scene when he is rocking Nixie to sleep and telling her about a garden...sigh. I can't even type it since I am welling up. I do have to say that I wanted to snap at Dallas a few times though. She acted like a jerk to Summerset and I was annoyed by it.

We get appearances by Mavis and of course Peabody, McNab, etc. What I thought was cool though is that we get reappearances by Richard DeBlass, Elizabeth Barrister (both in Naked in Death, #1-the case that brought Eve and Roarke together), and their adopted son Kevin (Vengeance in Death, #6)

The writing is top notch in this one I think. Robb definitely manages to hit your heart strings. The flow worked too, up until the end I thought. As I said above, I thought the ending was a bit too much to be believed. show less

The 20th In Death story begins with a home invasion that kills a man, his wife, his twelve-year-old son and the nine-year-old girl who was on a sleepover with his daughter. Nixie Swisher, his 9-year-old daughter, escapes the slaughter because she woke up in the night craving an orange fizzy and left her bed to go to the kitchen to get one.

Eve discovers her hiding in her parents shower and flashes back to her own situation right after she killed her father. Rather than let child protection services take her, Eve brings her home with her. And begins to try to find out who murdered her parents and why,

On the surface this family law lawyer and his nutritionist wife are unlikely people to be murdered brutally in their home. But looking show more deeper, Eve discovers that others connected to them - a judge, a social worker, a doctor - have all died relatively recently under suspicious circumstances.

She and Roarke and her team dig into the past to discover a conspiracy to get revenge.

I enjoyed the way Eve relates to Nixie and how Roarke and Summerset do too. I loved hearing Roarke's plans for their future children and how appalled Eve is to even think of becoming a parent. I loved how brave Nixie was and how she reminded Eve of herself had she had a different childhood. show less

What a story! Definitely one of the most intense and chilling in the series, especially with the paramilitary angle. I loved seeing Eve and Roarke dealing with a child. Those scenes managed to be funny, sweet, and yet very sad as well. One of my favorite elements of each story in the series is watching Eve and Roarke grow as a couple and find a little bit more peace with their past. SURVIVOR IN DEATH definitely did not disappoint in that regard.

The 20th In Death story begins with a home invasion that kills a man, his wife, his twelve-year-old son and the nine-year-old girl who was on a sleepover with his daughter. Nixie Swisher, his 9-year-old daughter, escapes the slaughter because she woke up in the night craving an orange fizzy and left her bed to go to the kitchen to get one.

Eve discovers her hiding in her parents shower and flashes back to her own situation right after she killed her father. Rather than let child protection services take her, Eve brings her home with her. And begins to try to find out who murdered her parents and why,

On the surface this family law lawyer and his nutritionist wife are unlikely people to be murdered brutally in their home. But looking show more deeper, Eve discovers that others connected to them - a judge, a social worker, a doctor - have all died relatively recently under suspicious circumstances.

She and Roarke and her team dig into the past to discover a conspiracy to get revenge.

I enjoyed the way Eve relates to Nixie and how Roarke and Summerset do too. I loved hearing Roarke's plans for their future children and how appalled Eve is to even think of becoming a parent. I loved how brave Nixie was and how she reminded Eve of herself had she had a different childhood. show less

Sometimes I'm not sure if television shows are lifting their ideas from Robb or the other way around. An entire family, save one young survivor, are murdered in their home. Sound familiar? I saw this on CSI, and Law and Order I think. But, those shows didn't have Eve Dallas on the case.

While I did enjoy this one, I found it a little too dark. Most novels in this series refer to Eve's horrible past, but this one drives the point home since the remaining victim is so young. Eve strongly identifies with her and wants to protect her as she wasn't. This makes for some depressing internal thoughts for Eve and even puts a damper on the usual playfulness she and Roarke engage in each book. Peabody and McNab do inject some humor into the story. show more Despite the tone, it was a solid mystery with some hot sex (as usual) and the characters are as real as ever. I recommend it, as I do the entire series, this just wasn't my favorite of the bunch. show less

Survivor in Death
by J.D. Robb
#20 In Death series

Nixie Swisher, a courageous 9-year-old girl, loses all of her family members, as well as her best friend, after she wakes up in the middle of the night and creeps downstairs to sneak an orange soda immediately before a home invasion ends with the brutal slayings of everyone close to her. Because her friend was spending the night with her and was sleeping in her bed, the killers did not realize they had overlooked a witness to their crimes, someone who would remind Lt. Eve Dallas of herself when she was a young girl, setting off her rage and need to take them down.

As always in this series, the suspense and action do not disappoint. This book in particular has moved up high on my list for show more this series for the character development of Eve and Roarke, as well as for Summerset, their majordomo and Roarke's father figure. They all have to face the tragedies of their past because of this little girl whom they have vowed to protect. We witness an opening discussion and thoughts about whether they think they will make good parents someday when they are ready. There is a very touching scene which actually brought tears to my eyes when Nixie had to visit the morgue to say her goodbyes. Very well done in showing Eve's humanity through that, as she is known to keep her emotions under lock and key as she fights anything that brings them to the surface.

Another point I was glad was brought up was Roarke's reasoning and thoughts about why he's willing to drop everything and help Eve in her homicide investigations, whether it is his computer or lock-picking skills, piloting his personal helicopter to get her where she needs to be in a hurry, or being part of the on-site team when they are busting down doors. I've been wondering if that was ever going to be touched upon because in recent books, he seems to be spending more time assisting the police department than he is building and maintaining his own empire.

We are seeing the tight-knit community of friends weaving itself around Eve (both in her chosen team at work as well as personally) and the emergence of her willingness to lean on them and give back to them in return. She's slowly starting to show a softer side. It only lasts for mere moments (haha) but she's learning.

This was an excellent installment of this ongoing series. show less

I was introduced to this series years ago in a book group and have been going back to read ones I missed earlier in the series. That said, if I'd read this in the order it was published, I probably would have rated it higher than I do reading it now.

This case is a bit different in that there's no apparent reason why the Swisher family was targeted for quite a while in the novel so there's a lot more police work for the team to do before a culprit or culprits is/are settled upon.

The survivor in this case is 9 year old Nixie Swisher. Nixie's friend, who was sleeping over, is killed instead. Nixie survives because she got up to get a drink/snack from the kitchen and was overlooked by the killers (who only expected there to be 5 family show more members in the house).

But Roarke and Dallas are also survivors of their childhood. Summerset is a survivor of losing his own daughter Marlena. show less