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Vengeance in Death

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Plot Summary[]

He is an expert with the latest technology . . . a madman with the mind of a genius and the heart of a killer. He quietly stalks his prey. Then he haunts the police with cryptic riddles about the crimes he is about to commit - always solved moments too late to save the victims' lives.

Police lieutenant Eve Dallas found the first victim butchered in his own home. The second lost his life in a vacant luxury apartment. The two men had little in common. Both suffered unspeakable torture before their deaths. And both had ties to an ugly secret of ten years past - a secret shared by none other than Eve's new husband, Roarke. 

--The Penguin Group


Map[]

Please reference the Vengeance in Death Map for locations or approximate locations of sites listed here.


Timeline[]

Spoiler warning!
This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode.


Story Dates: November 15-23, 2058[1]

Day 1 – November 15, 2058[]

Chapter 1[]

Day 2 – November 16, 2058[]

Chapter 2[]

  • 5:15 a.m. Eve wakes, goes for a run in the gym. She joins Roarke in the pool where they have sex.
  • At breakfast, she tells Roarke about the murder, that Brennen was from Dublin, learns that Roarke knew him. Roarke grieves for 'a touchstone perhaps. A song in a smoky pub on a rainy night.' [27]
  • Roarke researches information on Brennen for Eve, reads her case notes on his unregistered equipment.
  • Roarke and Summerset confer on implications of Brennen's murder.

Chapter 3[]

  • In Cop Central Eve and Peabody learn that the security discs for the Towers penthouse were disengaged and empty, with only one disc available. Peabody contacts EDD for help.
  • Eve contacts Brennen's widow, who is coming back to New York.
  • The one disc proves to be recording of Requiem Mass.
  • A second blocked transmission from the killer includes screams of his victim and a second riddle referring to 'Dicey Riley.' [40]
  • The help from EDD is the first appearance of Detective Ian McNab, who identifies Dicey Riley as a song 'about a woman who drinks too much.' [43]
  • Eve and Peabody go into the field to check Irish bars.
  • Eve checks into the morgue, where Morris, the ME, shows her a token found in Brennen's stomach during the autopsy.
  • Eileen Brennen arrives; in interview with Eve; she mentions a Dublin pub called the Penny Pig that her husband occasionally visited and identifies the token as a shamrock on one side and a fish on the other.
  • Eve and Peabody concentrate on locations with Shamrock in name.
  • 3 p.m. Eve visits Green Shamrock pub, interviews barmaid Maureen Mulligan, and learns that bartender Shawn Conroy also lives on site.
    • She finds a shamrock token in Shawn's room. [53]

Chapter 4[]

  • In interview with a second barmaid, Sinead Duggin, she mentions Shawn was hoping to link up with an old mate from Dublin named Roarke. [60]
  • Roarke confirms he used to know a Shawn Conroy. He and Eve check his empty rental properties. The second one proves to be the site of Conroy's murder. He had slowly bled to death. [65]
    • Another shamrock token is found in his pocket and a statue of the Virgin Mary is found in the room. Eve realizes there had been another such statue at Brennen's murder.
  • Eve again reviews the Luxury Towers security disc and sees Summerset in the lobby.

Chapter 5[]

  • She confronts Roarke, who is shocked by the information.
  • Summerset says he went to visit a friend named Audrey Morrell in apartment 1218 in the Towers but they missed each other. Eve tells Summerset to report at Cop Central for a formal interview at 8 a.m.
  • Roarke tells Summerset that Eve needs to know the whole story. Summerset is upset and accuses Roarke of disloyalty towards him.

Day 3 – November 17, 2058[]

  • 8:03 a.m. Eve at Cop Central: formal interview with Lawrence Charles Summerset.
  • He denies any connection with Brennen or Conroy beyond casual acquaintance over 12 years ago.
  • This was his first visit to Luxury Towers to see Ms. Audrey Morell. He claims Eve must have doctored the security disc, which shows him in the lobby but not exiting on Morell's floor or leaving the building.
  • Summerset cannot identify token and tells Eve he is not Catholic but 'mildly Unitarian.' (82)
  • Eve hammers at Summerset, suggesting that he is trying to finally punish Roarke since he was responsible for the death of his 14-year-old daughter Marlena Kolchek.
  • Summerset is upset so Roarke (acting as Summerset's representative in interview) asks for a break. Eve orders the recording off.
  • They also ask Peabody to leave the room and engage soundproofing.
  • Summerset denies blaming Roarke for Marlena's death and would not harm Roarke (whom he had taken in after he was 'beaten half to death') 'because he's what I have left. Because he's mine.' (84-5)
  • Roarke explains the link of Brennen and Conroy with Marlena's death. They had supplied the information which allowed Roarke to track down and kill the men who had killed Marlena. The first he disemboweled, the second bled to death. (86)
  • Roarke says he is revealing this information now because obviously Summerset is being set up.

Chapter 6[]

  • Eve and Peabody interview Audrey Morrell, who is Summerset's art teacher.
  • After another search of Brennen's penthouse, Eve and Peabody have lunch in Central Park. Eve asks Peabody to violate her duty by keeping secret the information she is about to share, and then tells her about Marlena and Roarke's vengeance. (99)
  • Eve has a one-on-one with Nadine Furst, who is shocked to learn of Brennen's murder. Nadine knew him as the majority owner of Channel 75, her employer.
  • Eve reports to Commander Jack Whitney and says she plans to work at home where her equipment is 'superior.' (104)

Chapter 7[]

  • Confrontation with Summerset at home; major confrontation and resolution with Roarke.
  • Eve learns about Inspector Maguire, the bent cop who 'investigated' Marlena's death. When informed that Maguire died some months later, Eve asks Roarke if he killed him. He denies it, 'but only because someone beat me to it.'

Chapter 8[]

  • They work together on Roarke's unlicensed equipment on each of the men who killed Marlena.
  • Roarke brings up Marlena's murder file. After looking at it Eve tells Roarke that killing the men responsible was justice. Roarke is deeply moved by that.
  • They work until after midnight. (125)

Day 4 – November 18, 2058[]

  • Eve has a nightmare during the night.
  • When she gets up in the morning and goes to her office, Roarke is on the 'link to Ireland talking to Jack [possibly Bodine, mentioned later in the book], and trying to protect anyone who might be the next target. (128)
  • Peabody and McNab arrive. McNab falls in love with Roarke's computer.
  • A blocked/jammed transmission comes in on Eve's home link and gives her the third riddle.
  • Victim is Jennie O'Leary, owner of a B&B in Wexford, Ireland and friend and lover of Roarke when they were 16.
  • The riddle leads them to an address on West 43rd Street, #522, a small hotel purchased by Roarke Industries the month before and scheduled for renovation.
  • An eight-year-old child sitting on the stairs to the third floor, Kevin, has another part of the riddle for Eve. Peabody takes charge of Kevin.
  • Eve and Roarke find Jennie dead from hanging. (137)
  • Roarke briefly loses it but leaves when so ordered.

Chapter 9[]

  • Roarke sends Peabody in and takes charge of Kevin, feeds him from a nearby glide-cart, and gets useful information from him.
  • When Child Protection Services come for Kevin, Roarke arranges for him to go to Elizabeth Barrister and Richard DeBlass (see Naked in Death), who are thinking about adoption. (149)
  • Eve and Roarke arrive home to learn Summerset has no alibi for Jennie's death.
  • Eve interviews him again.
  • In her office McNab is working with new tracking and monitoring equipment Roarke has sent over and had installed. He tracks that morning's transmission, which appears to come from the office he is sitting in. (157)
  • Peabody has tracked Jennie's arrival and check-in to Roarke's Palace Hotel, prepaid through Roarke Industries. (156)

Chapter 10[]

  • Eve and Peabody search Jennie's suite.
  • Eve returns home and has a consult with Dr. Mira in the garden. Eve shares the information about Marlena and Roarke with Mira and arranges for her to examine Summerset. (168)
  • Mavis and Leonardo arrive to cheer up Summerset.
  • Eve advises Roarke to increase his personal security. (173)
  • Eve tells him the autopsy results on Jennie and that another shamrock token has been found; he says he will take Jennie back to Ireland when the body is released.

Chapter 11[]

  • Eve gets acquainted with her new computer, which she briefly names 'Bruno.'
  • Eve has a mild rant about men and their toys.
  • She and Roarke review his list of the men who murdered Marlena and their relatives [which total more than fifty]. (182)
  • They break at 3 a.m. the next morning. (185)

Day 5 – November 19, 2058[]

  • 6 a.m. Eve and Roarke wake up.
  • Roarke offers to work with McNab when he and Peabody arrive at seven. Eve agrees if McNab clears it.
  • 8 a.m. Eve sets Peabody up in an office down the hall from her own.
  • When Eve goes to her own office she finds Roarke and McNab have taken apart her new computer and her desk 'link. (187)
  • Eve uses Roarke's office to prepare her report for Whitney.
  • McNab and Roarke make a breakthrough on the transmission when McNab finds an 'echo.'
  • They put that evidence on hard copy and disc for Eve's report and plan to try to track the echo.

Chapter 12[]

  • 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Summerset is in Testing. Mira gives Eve her preliminary report and her view of the killer.
  • Eve gives her report to Whitney and Chief Tibble, and learns that there are anonymous accusations that she and Roarke are attempting to suppress evidence.
  • Eve is outraged and personally offended. Whitney apologizes for any offense, and Tibble says to keep that righteous anger for the press conference.
  • After her report Whitney suggests she consider a trip to Ireland.
  • 4 p.m. press conference, after which Eve does a one-on-one with Nadine to provoke the killer.
  • 5:30 p.m. Eve watches the press conference from her office and is ordered by Whitney to give Nadine another, less emotional interview.
  • After 6:30 p.m. Eve leaves Cop Central to go home, gets stuck in traffic jam on Tenth Avenue between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth, phones home to tell Peabody she is stuck.
  • Eve gets out of her car and slams the door. The car explodes. (211)

Chapter 13[]

  • Everyone in Eve's home office has heard the explosion on her 'link.
  • Roarke searches for Eve and finally finds her tranq'd and furious, and takes her home.
Approximate site where Eve's car blows up

Day 6 – November 20, 2058[]

  • a.m. Eve wakes up. Roarke is very emotional.
  • Peabody and McNab arrive to find Eve having breakfast in bed. They report.
  • Nadine arrives and in talking to Eve realizes that Eve has used her to focus the killer on Eve. She is angry but understands when Eve explains. (226)
  • Eve, Peabody, and McNab then study the security disc from the garage at Cop Central and see Eve's car being tampered with. The killer has a hand jammer they have never seen before.

Chapter 14[]

  • Eve then goes to Roarke's office. He is furious at her for making herself a target.
  • When they have sorted that out he studies the disc. One of his R & D departments is working on a similar product.
  • He asks if Peabody and McNab can handle the legwork for the next two days. He wants to take Jennie's body home but cannot risk being so far away if Eve is targeted again. Eve agrees but does not tell him she had planned to ask him to go to Dublin with her that afternoon. (236)
  • On Roarke's private plane Eve is still getting reports.
  • Roarke says he will take her to the Penny Pig.
  • There he orders her a Guinness. She decides she likes it so the bartender says it's on him. He does not recognize Roarke at first, but when he does Eve learns that he is Brian Kelly, an old friend of Roarke's.
  • Brian now owns the Penny Pig. In the snug, the three of them discuss the past and the present case. (244-46)

Day 7 – November 21, 2058[]

Chapter 15[]

  • Dawn in Ireland. Adventures in the shower. (250-1)
  • Eve announces her appointment with Inspector Farrell at 9 a.m. and Roarke proposes to go along.
  • 9 a.m. Meeting with Inspector Katherine Farrell of the Garda. She knows Roarke by reputation.
  • After some territorial jockeying between her and Eve, Roarke gives her the necessary information to look up the Marlena Kolchek case, and the names of the men who killed her.
  • They work on profiles of family members. Eve shows the shamrock token and is told a local artist uses it as a signature. (259)
  • Insp. Farrell proposes to interview a likely dozen suspicious candidates with Eve as observer.
  • Before Roarke leaves she observes that she arrested his father once when she was a rookie. She expected to see some of him in Roarke but didn't.
  • Peabody reports to Eve at the hotel.
  • Roarke revisits the shanties and finds his ghosts have been put to rest.

Chapter 16[]

  • evening: Jennie's wake. (265)

Day 8 – November 22, 2058[]

  • morning: Jennie's funeral. (269)
  • Brian received a call at 8 a.m. [3 a.m. New York time] allegedly from Summerset that Roarke needed him urgently in New York, all expenses paid plus 20 thousand pounds a day. Brian is understandably suspicious and has brought the disc with his 'link log for Eve.
  • Eve contacts Peabody and learns that the killer has sent her two dozen roses and promises a novena for her recovery.
  • Brian stays in Dublin, Eve and Roarke depart for New York. (275)
  • At 8 a.m., back in her home office, Eve interviews the delivery boy. Various leads are explored, and McNab finds out the call from Summerset was a hologram.
  • Eve notifies Nadine that she is recovered and back on the job.
  • Since Eve still has no car, she and Peabody take Roarke's 6000XX sportster to the Central Park Arms where Brian had been told to come.

Chapter 17[]

  • A trap is planned, and a second team is sent to the Luxury Towers from where the latest transmission had been sent.
  • Everything is in place, the sting has been set up, the killer has been spotted. But--
    • a dogfight breaks out between a poodle and two afghan hounds in the lobby, the killer spots the trap and flees on foot and by stolen car.
    • McNab is knocked off his feet by one of the dogs.
    • Eve and Roarke pursue in Roarke's sports car but lose their quarry.

Chapter 18[]

  • There is large embarrassment over the failure of the sting and media sighting of cops hot-dogging it through the sky in a sports car. (299-300)
  • Roarke offers to study the discs 'as a veteran cop-spotter' to see what went wrong.
  • They stop for the night at midnight.

Day 9 – November 23, 2058[]

  • 3 a.m. Patrick Murray, cleaner at the Mermaid Club, drunk, admits an unknown man who then tranqs him, shackles him to floor of the show tank and turns on the water to drown him.
  • At 5 a.m. Eve is wakened by a blocked transmission from the killer with the fourth riddle, which sends them to the Mermaid Club [which Roarke had won in a dice game years ago and then sold off]. (317)

Chapter 19[]

  • Eve gives Roarke her clutch piece.
  • Summerset has been lured to the club and is found trying to rescue Murray. Eve and Roarke try to rescue Murray and give CPR. Peabody and MTs arrive.
  • Eve arrests Summerset and interviews him at Cop Central. He was lured by a threat to harm Audrey Morrell. Eve asks Roarke to keep Summerset away from home until after 3 p.m. while she searches his quarters. (YANNI)
  • Roarke did not recognize Murray as he was not a friend but a gambler who sometimes gambled at Roarke's games.
  • est. noon-3 p.m. Eve gets her new car and she and Peabody go to interview Audrey Morrell.
  • Eve interviews two street ghosts [Tranquility addicts] outside Mermaid Club.
  • Feeney returns from his family holiday at Roarke's villa in Mexico.
  • Eve learns that Murray could recover.
  • Summerset's quarters are searched. A painting of a young boy seems familiar. The signature is Audrey. On the back they find a bug and, hidden by the frame, a shamrock.

Chapter 20[]

  • Eve and Peabody run female relatives of the men who killed Marlena, and I.D. Audrey Morrell as Mary Patricia Calhoun, widow of Liam [or John, p.121], mother of Liam.
  • Audrey is arrested. Liam's hole is found in her apartment. Liam proves to be A.A. Dillard, an employee of Roarke's and the one who would have recognized McNab as a cop at the hotel.
  • Audrey is interviewed. After five hours she is still defiant.
  • After 9 p.m. Eve goes home. On the way she notifies Nadine of the status of the case.
  • Arriving home, Eve finds Summerset tied up and Liam waiting with a laser scalpel.
  • He attacks Eve with it when she tries to use her stunner, and then takes her weapon.
  • He aims at Summerset, Eve steps between and takes the hit.
  • Roarke arrives and shoots Liam with Eve's clutch piece. Summerset treats Eve's injuries, which are serious. Before he goes to notify Whitney of what has happened, he tells Eve he is very obliged to her and regrets she was injured.
  • Our hero and heroine decide that, even if they lead lives that are often too interesting, they wouldn't change a moment.

Character List[]

List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Recurring Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]

Deaths[]

Victim Cause of Death Weapon Perpetrator
Thomas X. Brennen disembowelment, amputation Liam Calhoun
Shawn Conroy exsanguination Liam Calhoun
Jennie O'Leary slow hanging rope Liam Calhoun
Liam Calhoun overload of nervous system stunner Roarke

Trivia[]

Detective Ian McNab is introduced.

Eve's vehicle slot at Cop Central:  garage section D, level three, slot 101

Other Covers[]

Additional covers here

UK Paperback edition US 1st edition Blue Lady cover]] File:Ven cover German edition cover German Book Club edition cover BR edition cover Brilliance Audio unabridged edition cover
UK Paperback edition US 1st edition Blue Lady cover German edition cover German Book Club edition cover BR edition cover Brilliance Audio unabridged edition cover

YANNIs[]

  • Thomas X. Brennen's age is given as forty-two[2], then listed as fifty-two.[3]
  • It was exactly five a.m. when the 'link transmission from the Mermaid Club woke Eve.[4]  Later, Summerset said, "I received a transmission at about six-fifteen" ... yet he arrived at the Mermaid Club before Eve and Roarke.[5] (return to section)

Footnotes[]

  1. ↑ Pg. 78. When Eve questions Summerset, she logs the official time as: "November seventeen, twenty fifty-eight, time is oh eight hundred point three hours".
  2. ↑ Vengeance in Death (ISBN 0-425-16039-4), p. 9
  3. ↑ Vengeance in Death (ISBN 0-425-16039-4), p. 45
  4. ↑ Vengeance in Death (ISBN 978-0-425-16039-8), p. 315
  5. ↑ Vengeance in Death (ISBN 978-0-425-16039-8), p. 323

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