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Whoever said blood was thicker than water never stood in a pool of it. Retiring from stealing priceless treasures seemed like a surefire way for Rook Stevens to stay on the right side of the law. The only cop in his life should have been his probably-boyfriend, Los Angeles Detective Dante Montoya, but that’s not how life—his life—is turning out. Instead, Rook ends up not only standing in a puddle of his cousin Harold’s blood but also being accused of Harold’s murder…and sleeping with Harold’s wife. For Dante, loving the former thief means his once-normal life is now a sea of chaos, especially since Rook seems incapable of staying out of trouble—or keeping trouble from following him home. When Rook is tagged as a murder suspect by a narrow-focused West L.A. detective, Dante steps in to pull his lover out of the quagmire Rook’s landed in. When the complicated investigation twists around on them, the dead begin to stack up, forcing the lovers to work together. Time isn’t on their side, and if they don’t find the killer before another murder, Dante will be visiting Rook in his prison cell—or at his grave.
4 out of 5 (very good)
Independent Reviewer for Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Rook is trying to go straight, but cousin Harold has his damn bird. Then he find Harold dead, and the bodies keep on coming. Dante just wants to wrap Rook up and keep him safe.
This is book two in the series and it would help greatly to read book one, Murder and Meyhem, first. Not totally necessary, though.
And I struggled with this one and it pains me deeply that I didn't love it as much as book one!!
It's well written, from both Rook and Dante's point of view, in a way only Ms Ford can tell her tales. Those throw away last chapter lines that make you go "say what,now??" And make you question what you just read, and make me think I missed something.
It's messy, what with dead cousins and heads in boxes and shootings and things. Its sexy in places, with the love the love the two men have for each other coming off every page and showing in everything they do for each other.
And I did not get whodunnit til it was revealed in the book.
So why did I struggle?? No flipping idea. I DID enjoy it, it just took me far longer than it should have.
So, because of that,
4 stars. **same worded review will appear elsewhere**
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and my comments here are my honest opinion. *
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and was a 2016 LAMBDA finalist with her novel, Murder and Mayhem. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications. She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Yoshi, a grumpy tuxedo cat and Tam, a diabetic black pygmy panther, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.