Romance and other things

A murdered prostitute. An obvious suspect. Clear evidence. For once, Jericho Crewe has a straightforward crime to investigate, and Wade Granger isn’t involved.

It all seems so simple, but Jericho’s instincts won’t let him rest. As he investigates, he finds troubling suggestions that the murder is a part of something larger and more sinister. But working within the boundaries of the law may keep him from finding the truth. If Jericho doesn’t break the rules, an innocent man may rot in jail while a killer remains free to strike again.

Inevitably, it all comes back to Wade. Because who else knows as much about breaking rules? And who else knows Jericho the way Wade does—not wisely, but far, far too well?

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SPOILERS GALLORE GALLORE BEWARE. SPOILERS!!!! IMPORTANT ONES AND EVEN ABOUT SOME MYSTERY RESOLUTIONS. spoilers!!!

Review.

Dear Kate Sherwood, when I reviewed the first and second part of this series I was worried that I may want to throw this book against the wall - because all signs pointed to Jericho (the cop, or more precisely under sheriff ) and Wade Granger ( local crime boss and a possible killer of Jericho's father and Jericho's lover during the turbulent time of their youth getting back together.

I fretted because usually I cannot stand cop and criminal ( especially if such criminal is a suspect of cop's investigations) being involved in romance - don't like stupid cops and corrupted cops in Romance . If I am reading a criminal drama fine, I am happy to read about people I cannot stand if I like the writing. This is *romantic* suspense, and as much as there is a suspense here, the story makes a very strong claim to belong to Romance genre and in Romance I like my heroes to be flawed, I do not like them completely unlikeable.

You however managed something unthinkable - despite writing being on the wall about our guys getting back together, I was still looking forward to this book. I even started making excuses for them - hey they knew each other back then, not like Jericho completely forgot himself and threw himself on the suspect. You would ask me does it make a difference if they knew each other or not? Not really no, but as I said you managed to make me like them so I wanted to talk myself out of thinking about Jericho as being a complete idiot.

So, this book threw me out for a loop. Well, not in every way possible - even though I am unhappy that I was right ( meaning that when I thought about this possibility I was hoping it will not ever come true because it will be so boring) . We learn who killed Jericho's father -> hey, the most rude and ungrateful character is the killer. YAY! Lesson learned - if I am reading about a nasty character and there is a murder mystery waiting to be solved, nasty person equals killer.

You would ask why this book threw me out for a loop? Because see the romantic involvement between Jericho and Wade became the least of my problems with Jericho. Oh it definitely happens. Joy, but I was ready to write it off as good people do stupid things, even when they are THAT stupid.

"Jericho could physically hear the warning voice in his head. You can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with a known criminal, you idiot! The voice was right, obviously, but Jericho’s real voice said, “You give me your word, Wade? You tell me that this isn’t one of your games, it isn’t part of some new scheme to run drugs across the border using ex-athletes with brain injuries, it’s just—just you and me, having a conversation about my day?” Wade was still for a moment, then nodded. “I give you my word.” The word of a criminal, the word of the man who was the prime suspect in the death of Jericho’s own father—it was completely meaningless. Except it wasn’t, not with Wade standing there, staring Jericho right in the eye, unflinching."

Our dear Jericho in this book becomes well, the LAW I guess ( Law and justice?!).

It is very much in line with what seems to be the prominent theme for this series as Wade frames it:

Nobody’s a bad guy, nobody’s a good guy. It’s all just broken. And you can’t fix it, not with all the laws you could ever come up with.” “So what are we supposed to do? Give up? Stop caring, stop trying to make anything better?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question; Jericho really wanted to hear Wade’s answer. But Wade’s shrug was noncommittal. “Keep trying if it helps you sleep at night. But don’t get too worked up when it doesn’t do you any good, you know?” His smile was fond and gentle. “You were always too much of an optimist. I feel like I spent half my high school years trying to keep the world from disappointing you. You and your Laws of Jericho—even then, you wanted to impose order on chaos. And even then, I knew it couldn’t be done. But I wanted to believe, all the same.”

But once again we are going back to the Romance genre and while this is certainly not a requirement, I am not interested in the cops who cover for the criminals, for the cops who are okay with murdering criminals because they do not have evidence to catch them. Because for real?! Yeah, there is plenty of brokenness in our justice system - so called good guys do not contribute to the cause of increasing such brokenness they work to repair it.

It is well written, hence it gets two stars, but I really REALLY hate Jericho after this book so it does not get more than that.