Although the fight itself isn't that long, I expect a lot of readers of this forum would love 'Treachery in Death' (J.D.Robb) - great find by DCameron! I wrote a review and forgot to post it:
It's the age-old struggle between Good and Evil presented in the sexiest guise imaginable: as a duel between two beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed, female police lieutenants - each a leader capable of inspiring devotion in the men and women under her command, each called upon, too, at times to flex her political muscle, her interpersonal skills and her powers of persuasion on those (superiors, witnesses, colleagues…) whose approval, input or skills could be vital to the investigation – the one, in hopes of obstructing it, the other, to keep it flowing to a successful conclusion. We know from the start that Renee – who'd had the easiest possible start in the force and a shining example of virtue in the form of her father, a universally respected retired police chief, to follow – is rotten to the core (a manipulative, cynical, insatiably greedy, murderous bitch who's "built her organization over years. Using her father’s name, sex, bribery, threats, guile—whatever it takes. Including killing other cops”) and that Eve – whose start in the force (and indeed, life) was more troubled – is decent, capable of great empathy as well as kindness, and driven by a sense of duty. But that doesn't make her any less pitiless in the pit. Ordered by her superior, and egged on by the men and women around her (some unashamedly titillated by the situation and even exchanging bets on the outcome), to "take her down, and take her down hard", Eve accepts the assignment with relish.
“Did you scare her?" asks the heroine's young female subordinate, Peabody, quite early in the proceedings. "I’m good with the embarrassed, pissed off, and undermined, but I’d really like her scared.”
Eve’s smile spread wide even as her eyes burned.
“Peabody, I put the fear of God into her.”
[DON'T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ THE BOOK]
It goes down, of course, the way it was bound to, but it's delicious all the same to watch. Although the forces ranged against her at the start seem slightly superior, Eve (who's witty, cunning and sexy as hell with it) proves the more resourceful general: she out-thinks, out-lasts, out-leads, out-manoeuvres and even out-politics Renee, tapping in to her own killer instinct, which she at no point disavows, as well as her righteous rage to take the other woman apart, goading her into mistakes, yanking her chain with mischievous, spiteful glee, invading her space, unnerving her, harassing, pressing, panicking her into error, undermining her authority, sapping the confidence of her subordinates in her leadership, shrewdly assessing their characters and their weaknesses, winning some to her cause, frightening others into turning state's evidence, baiting one into blowing his cool completely, driving a judicious wedge into her whole phalanx of henchmen until it fractures and they start killing each other, then laying careful traps for those that remain, until the general who sent them into those traps (her judgement by this time clouded, her lucidity chronically impaired) is isolated; at which point - though it's her opponent who issues the challenge, boasting she's been taking lessons in unarmed combat since she was five - Eve beats the shit out of her in what is, for the one, a fight to the death, and, for the other, to 'a fate worse than', initially in the intimacy of the Renee's office but, after the fight spills out into the rapidly filling squad-room, Eve delivers the coup de grace in front of half the NYPD.
*
The final tableau has shades of Millais' 'Ophelia', only without the water and flowers: the blue-eyed girl of the department - steely, sexy, smart and ambitious – is lying glassy eyed on her back on the cold floor of the squad-room with her face busted (and her wrist, in all probability, broken as well), at which point she's subjected to a further humiliation – a mild one, admittedly, measured against the mass-media, flashbulbs-exploding, prolonged public humiliation of the trial to come, and the manifold grinding indignities, the death by a thousand cuts, that await her as corrupt cop (and a tasty piece of arse at that) serving a life sentence in a New York prison, all of which fall outside the scope of the novel but can be taken as read, yet crueller in a way because it's in front of the people she's been working with but mostly climbing over all these years in her race to the top: in a gesture combining generosity with the merest hint of malice (though some might call it a sadistic last twist of the knife), Eve confers the glory of making the arrest, which God knows would look nice on anyone's record, to her young partner, whose report had triggered the enquiry in the first place, ordering her to do it with language the sexual undertones of which are deafening:
“She’s yours.”
“Huh?”
“I’m the one whose ears are ringing, for God’s sake. I said she’s yours. Your collar. Take her."
Which the rookie does ("with pleasure") bending down to slap the cuffs on the woman who would certainly have killed her or had her killed on the spot at the start of the book, when Peabody was naked in the shower, eavesdropping, hearing the lieutenant confess to ordering the murder of an informer, herself shaking with fear at what would happen if she were discovered, a woman who not only outranks her but is many years her senior – a woman with a hitherto unblemished record and 18 years on the force she had confidently expected some day to lead – before hauling her sorry, beaten carcass up off the floor. Someone else has to hold her steady as she is read her rights and "perp-walked" out.
*
The undertones aren't lesbian. Oberman, we're told, can't relate to women but has been using her sex appeal throughout her career to further her ambitions (not to mention enslave and manipulate her goons). Eve uses hers too, cheerfully and unashamedly, as a fillip and to coax the man who'd do anything for her anyway – but who's not a cop and has no business, strictly speaking, being involved in the enquiry – into deploying his wealth, his contacts and his technological wizardry to hack security systems of all varieties and lay bare the complex network of numbered bank accounts, false identities and luxurious properties held under assumed names in exotic locations – into providing, in short, the evidence that will seal the case for the prosecution; but neither woman is a model of workplace propriety; Eve, like Renee, has let a work relationship complicate her task (each of them has an ex-lover in her squad making problems). Nor would Peabody herself rate an A++ from Human Resources; she, too, is having an affair with a male colleague.
But when it comes to bloodlust, it's a different story; that's woman on woman, man on man, and both diagonals; it may not be their sole or even main motivation, but bloodlust's shooting adrenaline into everyone's veins, driving all the principal characters – the antagonists, their lovers, Eve's subordinates, Renee's assassins – towards new personal bests, besides having everyone in the department who's in on the story but not involved feeling the rush and shuffling their metaphorical bottoms excitedly towards the edge of their seats. Not even their boss, the current commander, tasked with ensuring that rules are adhered to and that the eventual case will be bullet-proof in a court of law, is entirely immune to the drug, as he confesses plainly with this tongue-in-cheek rebuke to Eve at the end:
“It was unnecessary to engage in physical contact with the suspect, to break procedure and set aside your weapon, and do so when you clearly had the suspect under control.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Unnecessary,” he repeated, “but just. And I believe it was as satisfying to experience as it was to observe."
There's a strange moment, too, when his predecessor, Commander Oberman (retired), professor emeritus of ethical policing, paragon of virtue – Robert Mueller, James Comey and Jimmy Stewart all rolled into one – congratulates Eve on her bulldog tenacity, even though it's his own daughter's lovely thigh into which she's sunk her metaphorical teeth, and - though he has no idea at this point which one of them is in the right - after the most half-hearted of half-hearted attempts to make peace, gives them (albeit obliquely) his blessing to fight it out:
“Even when I had the chair, I believed my officers should settle their own differences.”
Daddy refusing to grease the wheels? Eve thought. That had to chap Renee’s ass.
“Yes, sir. I agree.”
And whilst Renee's half-puppy-half-lover, Bix, the special forces reject, has his own psychoses, infinitely unhealthier and more pernicious than mere voyeurism, the curtain's barely risen before Eve's lover, her husband, is telling her how much he's enjoying the show:
“Would it help if I tell you how very entertaining—even arousing—it was for me to watch you metaphorically grind Renee into fuming dust to the tune of ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’”
“Maybe. It was fun.” She rolled her shoulders. “It was satisfying. More fun, more satisfying when it stops being metaphorical, but pretty damn entertaining.”
“And arousing?”
She shot him a quick, cocky grin.
“Maybe.”
*
So at the end, with her prey cornered, Eve can hardly believe her luck when Renee slips out of her heels and challenges her to put down the weapon ("that makes you look weak") and fight her, hand to hand, woman to woman.
"Are you serious?"
Of all the responses, this was the last Eve expected. A shiny bubble of sheer joy rose up in her. "You want to dance with me?"
*
Yep. A shiny bubble of sheer joy. The book's just that. I could get very used to watching Eve Dallas work…
