Why I read it:  I love Eve and Roarke so I bought it as soon as it was available.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads)  Sometimes brotherhood can be another word for conspiracy…

Dennis Mira just had two unpleasant surprises. First he learned that his cousin Edward was secretly meeting with a real estate agent about their late grandfather’s magnificent West Village brownstone, despite the promise they both made to keep it in the family. Then, when he went to the house to confront Edward about it, he got a blunt object to the back of the head.

Luckily Dennis is married to Charlotte Mira, the NYPSD’s top profiler and a good friend of Lieutenant Eve Dallas. When the two arrive on the scene, he explains that the last thing he saw was Edward in a chair, bruised and bloody. When he came to, his cousin was gone. With the mess cleaned up and the security disks removed, there’s nothing left behind but a few traces for forensics to analyze.

As a former lawyer, judge, and senator, Edward Mira mingled with the elite and crossed paths with criminals, making enemies on a regular basis. Like so many politicians, he also made some very close friends behind closed—and locked—doors. But a badge and a billionaire husband can get you into places others can’t go, and Eve intends to shine some light on the dirty deals and dark motives behind the disappearance of a powerful man, the family discord over a multimillion-dollar piece of real estate . . . and a new case that no one saw coming.

Trigger Warning: Graphic sexual violence against men and women

What worked for me (and what didn’t):  I was so excited about this book because it promised to have lots of Dennis Mira and he’s been a favourite character in the series for some time, even though he’s not in it very much. I’ve always kind of wondered how the absent-mindedness works when he’s clearly so capable so much of the time. (The first time I encountered Mr. Mira in the series, I thought maybe he had a brain injury or maybe early onset Alzheimer’s or something but it became clear that neither of those things apply.) And, while Brotherhood in Death did have more of Mr. Mira in it than any of the earlier books (including a particularly touching scene between he and Eve later in the book), he still wasn’t in it all that much. Sadness!

On the other hand, there were things in the book that made up for that lack. Most notably for me, scenes where Eve shows she still has battles to fight with demons of the past and how she’s learning to lean on Roarke in those times without fighting it so much (all the feels!). She even did a bit more opening up to Peabody.

“It was like something out there said, “Hell, let’s give these two a break. It’s time they found each other.” And it broke, those first cracks on what I’d locked away. I could start facing it because I could trust him to stand for me. Trust him to let me stand for myself. There was no way to lock away what I felt for him. I couldn’t make it stop or go back, and somewhere along the line I stopped wanting it to. I think, without that, I’d have lost myself. Somewhere down the line the victims would stop mattering so much, the job would just be the job. Maybe I’d have gotten the bars first, who knows, but I’d have stopped being the kind of cop I needed to be.”

And that, she knew absolutely, that would have ended her.

“I’d have stopped surviving without what I let in, with him.”

There was also a couple of scenes where Eve and Roarke demonstrate that they don’t have the abso-perfect marriage – sometimes they both do things which they think are right and reasonable (and, from their point of view, they actually are) but the other person doesn’t see it that way and they have to work it out. That sort of stuff fascinates me anyway but I have an extra layer of appreciation with Eve and Roarke.

The suspense plot is pretty graphic and sordid. Both the crimes investigated and the motive of those crimes are rooted in sexual violence and this brings back triggering memories for Eve. It did strike me that Eve didn’t have quite the same triggering memories from Devoted in Death, with involved graphic sexual violence as well (maybe I’ve just remembered it wrong?) but even so, it seemed right to me that while Eve may be able to deal with her past better, it was still going to sneak up on her and pounce every now and then.

The whole story takes less than a week, so not a lot happens outside of the crime and the investigation. I did like that Roarke actually had work to do in his own business and said so to Eve but I also liked that (of course) he would put any work aside if Eve needs him from a personal perspective. It was nice to see Eve actually asking for that help for a change. I can still see growth and change in the characters and this, apart from anything else, keeps me invested in the series. It might be incremental growth but given the time frames of the books themselves, that makes sense to me. There have been 40+ books but they’ve only been married for three years.

What else? For once, Eve’s habit of getting cliche phrases wrong was a feature not a bug and there were even some chuckleworthy moments when she was turning strange things we say back on itself:

“You do keep busy.”

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

“Why? They’re idle when you’re sleeping – does he set up shop then? Are we all supposed to stay awake using our hands so the devil doesn’t make stuff? What if you broke your hand? Is he doing his workshop thing while you’re waiting to have it fixed?”

Roarke contemplated the pale gold ceiling. “Such a simple, if moralistic, phrase, now thoroughly destroyed.”

“I keep busy, too.” Pleased with herself, she strode off when the doors whispered open.

Grade: B/B+

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