Guest Review: Linchpin by Jodi Payne

A cleaner for the mob should know better than to make his own mess.

Randall Quinn has been a cleaner for the mob for over ten years, but a particularly violent scene sets him to drinking alone and contemplating his options. At thirty-nine, it’s possible this is just a mid-life crisis so he tries buying himself a flashy car to satisfy the itch, and agrees to take another job to test his conviction. He’s expecting easy money when he arrives at a seedy motel to clean up after what the Boss told him was supposed to have been a simple execution. But what he discovers in that motel room is anything but simple, and from that moment on, every decision he makes for himself makes his life more and more complicated.

Reviewer: Shee Reader

Our book opens with a clean-up specialist (Quinn) arriving to get rid of the body from a mob hit. It all goes pretty badly when he finds a living, bruised up guy and no corpse. A rather frantic call to his boss reveals surprising advice, ‘finish him off or take him home’. At the sound of sirens, Quinn makes a rash decision. He bundled the bruised and battered not-at-all-dead man into his pride and joy. The shiny new BMW.

Arriving home, he chains up his prisoner in the garage and sets about pretending he doesn’t have a guy with a target on his back in his garage. Waking in the night to find his prisoner trying to escape with his pride and joy, Quinn find himself chasing down the guy in freezing temperatures in just his boxers. Eventually he gets them both back inside, stokes up the fire and tries to find out what exactly meant this guy was on his bosses ‘die list’.

The getting to know you stuff was very funny to read, and I enjoyed the banter between Quinn and Tony. They get on to drinking whisky and the next thing they know it’s morning and they are in Quinn’s bed, together.

The attraction built fast, and I enjoyed the conversational style. There’s quite a twist in the tale which was surprising, and a very enjoyable HEA.

This was a short book, but it was well written and packed a decent punch. There was excitement, intrigue, hot sexy times and decent character development. All in all, recommended!

I was given a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.