I liked but
I had issues with the only book by this writer I had read prior to this one ( the one that was also published by Riptide), but I remember finding it compulsively readable and deciding to give this one a try.
I think the words "compulsively readable" applies to this story too, or should I say to the beginning of the story, because this is the first of five books I believe. Is it series? I am not sure and to be honest with you I am very nervous to see whether the writer would be able to keep the tension up for five books, because from what I understand this is just one story in five parts and what will be happening is the development of the one investigation of the serial killings and one budding romance.
This is the part where their romance *just started*, strong attraction is there, but Levi just broke up with the boyfriend of three years whom he still has some feelings for and what they had besides attraction and being entangled in the investigation of serial killer is basically rebound sex. Speaking about sex - we only have one sex scene thank goodness, which made perfect sense considering that Levi was just out of the serious relationship and the sex scene started at 73 percent of the story or so, but did it have to be so freaking detailed, almost pornographic really? It was as if the writer was told, or decided on her own to make up for the fact that they were not having sex on every page with the length and explicitness of this one.
Sex scene aside, I really liked both Levi and Dominic. As much as I like the romance where both men are clearly alphas, I always worry that what I get with this type of pairing is GFY trope, and I had been consciously avoiding this one for quite some time now. Luckily, this was not what was happening here, not even close. Levi identifies as gay, we do not hear how Dominic identifies ( gay or bi, or anything else) or if we do, I missed it, except we do know that he does not think of himself as straight and definitely likes men.
I liked that the author kept their initial sniping to the believable amount of page space and a little bit of hostility in the beginning did not last during the whole book. Once they know they can trust each other in the work environment, they do so and I thought on the personal level trust was there too, even if as I said their romance is in the very early stages.
The serial killer investigation is just as important if not more important than romance. We have the vigilante killer who seems to fancy themselves being able to do what law enforcement could not have done, because they seem to kill people who either escaped punishment or gotten much lesser punishment than they should have done. That killer also took weird personal interest in Levi and Dominic - at some point even protecting Levi's life.
As I said before I was very engaged in the thriller/mystery storyline, but I also think that the killer was glaringly obvious same as one major red herring. We shall see if I am correct in the next books.
Grade B
5