Detective Sam Walker gets a surprise phone call the day he wakes up with the hangover from hell. The caller informs him that his name is Justin and that they met the night before in a gay bar. Not only met, but kissed and traded phone numbers and Sam has no memory of it at all. Intrigued, Sam wants to meet Justin again, but any chance of that is delayed when he and his partner are assigned a murder investigation and told to take care of it ASAP.
Sam has a problem, a deeply personal one that he doesn’t talk about, but when he’s with Justin the problem seems to disappear and he’s convinced he’s been given a new lease on life. His elation is short-lived, however, when the case he and his partner are working on takes a dark turn.
Justin also has a problem…Maria Esteban, a fiery-tempered Puerto Rican who owns the fashion company Justin designs for. Theirs is a volatile relationship and when tragedy strikes, the finger of suspicion points at him.
Can Sam save Justin not only from a bigoted detective intent on cracking the case quickly, but from a new and unexpected source, too? Or is their love affair doomed before they can truly savor Sam’s newfound freedom from the past?
Reader Advisory: This book contains homophobia, the remembered assault and rape of the main character and attempted murder. There are some scenes of violence, as well as brief references to child slavery.
Reviewer: Annery
Sam Walker left Texas, fleeing a small town life that threatened to kill him figuratively, possibly literally, and a family that rejected him for being gay. He made his way to Los Angeles, and at 30 has carved out a career for himself as a Detective in the LAPD, found friends and been embraced by the family of his work partner Martin McCready. His life is nice. Fine. Really. Except he’s lonely. But all that is about to change.
After a night of drunken celebration Sam gets a call from Justin, a guy he chatted up at a bar, but doesn’t remember. Justin isn’t offended on account of Sam being a fantastic kisser. They exchange a few steamy phone calls, meet, and it’s all happy sailing. There really is no conflict between these two, they’re exactly what cranks each other’s engine. Actually Justin turns out to be the cure for Sam’s “ailment”, sort of like magic D but in reverse. Sure. It could happen. It could also be that time has healed Sam and that Justin is the person who tics his boxes. Just a thought. I didn’t hate the idea, because I’m a romantic at heart.
At this point you may be wondering “what about the mystery?” Well … there isn’t one. Not really. The prologue teases the case you think the story will be about, but the bulk of the book, probably 80% deals with a different case that Sam & Martin catch (a young hustler found murdered in a known cruising park), Sam’s relationship with Martin and his family, the casual homophobes at work, but also the staunch allies, Justin’s work woes, Justin’s relationship with his own family, and primarily with Sam and Justin’s romance, which is on the fast lane to love with zero bumps or stops. The Case, when it comes, is fairly straightforward, and perhaps a bit anticlimactic. But the rest of the story was nice. Cozy.
This is my first J. P. Bowie and I think the author, in this instance, just uses the template of a murder mystery to do some character & societal portraits. I liked that Sam & Justin don’t seem to be the result of what’s trending or hot in the romance world. In fact, they’re pretty traditional in their roles (save for the gay thing), and Justin’s speech, in particular, is peppered with old-fashioned expressions, like “Put me down, varlet,”, who says that? Granted, he is a designer, but he’s like 26? On the plus side I learned what a kirby grip is. I liked the other characters, particularly Martin and his family, and I liked the accurate sense of place.
If you're looking for something low-angst and well written to fill a couple hours this could be it. I don’t know if you’ll remember it later, but that’s what re-reads are for.
Thanks for the cool review!
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