This post began life as a much-too-long comment on someone else’s blog. I would have apologized for hijacking the thread, except the thread started with a Grrr, which this definitely is, and it was about a book, which this also is.
I mean, I literally wrote ‘Grrr’ in my reading journal last night after staying up past midnight to finish book 3 of what is billed as a trilogy but oh wait here in the last chapter which is by the way full of unresolved plot threads we’re dropping a teaser that The Story Continues because Mobster.
I incautiously bought a book (and then its two sequels) because a romance review site has people who say ‘oh this love story is the best’ and I’m all about a good love story, right? Had I gone to the author’s page I would have realized that he writes mysteries/suspense, in which the main characters are generally M/M couples, but which I should not expect to be romances. Which is fine. I do read mysteries and have recently read some M/M romantic suspense that I thoroughly enjoyed.
These books: not so much. I got hooked in, because the MCs are compelling even though they are both an absolute mess. I even laughed at some of the banter, and had a few feels about the love story. But these were really not romance, and not especially satisfying as mystery (see: unresolved threads).
The three books in question are set up as romantic suspense. (Meaning the romance is at least as important as the suspense plot.) And the amount of page time given to the love story is equivalent to the page time given to the suspense plot, or plots, because each book has its primary plot. First book is blackmail, second book is drugs + murder of a person who used to run a ‘conversion therapy’ place, third book is corrupt cops. Except all of them are kind of about corrupt cops, plus understory of a serial killer who targeted gay men. All this is in St. Louis, MO. These details will probably tell somebody who’s read the books what they are.
Along the way, incidentally, is a lot of on-page violence. Much of it delivered unto the main characters, and some of it delivered by the main characters. Violence is not a deal-breaker for me in fiction. But there comes a time when you think ‘these guys both have a death wish.’ When that is supported by their internal monologue and by other actions, you start thinking you are not reading the books you wanted to read. (And by ‘you’ I mean ‘I.’)
Problem the first is that there is no HEA and barely a HFN. Both main characters are really damaged; one has severe (and warranted) PTSD due to serial killer and the other is in an abusive marriage. End of book 1, PTSD guy is with someone else. End of book 2, married guy has finally walked out and MCs are nominally together but they continually do and say the wrong things to each other and then run away. (PTSD guy misuses prescription drugs, is in therapy but his therapist is clearly awful at her job. He has what are billed as loving parents with whom he never has an on-page scene. Meanwhile borderline-alcoholic married guy comes from what has obviously been an abusive home, mother is long dead, father is dying of cancer. MCs have no support, is what I’m saying.) It’s perfectly believable behavior, under the circumstances, but it does not hold out much hope for a long-term successful relationship.
There is exactly one fully-drawn female character, who happens to be one of very few POC characters, and who is apparently meant to be comic relief. Except she’s not funny because she’s terrible at her job and makes things worse for the MCs. There is a plot puppy in book 3. Almost everyone in the entire community is either a criminal or a victim. There are two people who are neither, and are appealing, who are abandoned at the end of book 3, one by dumping him in an off-page relationship with a much older man, and the other by simply not referring to his existence again after his email delivering an important plot document to one of the MCs.
The document guy, by the way, is the new boyfriend of the One Good Cop (okay, there may be one other, but she is a Plot Cop), who was with the PTSD guy for a while and is last seen in a coma in the hospital. Meanwhile the serial killer turns out to be One Good Cop’s on-the-job partner, as far as I can tell because he was the only person so far identified in the through-story who hadn’t been a) proved innocent b) killed. It made no sense for that guy to be the killer. Up till that moment everything he did supported him being one of the good guys. Then there’s a Big Reveal and this guy turns up in the hospital room and I think ‘oh FML really?!’
I mean, I knew somebody was going to turn up while PTSD guy was visiting his comatose ex-boyfriend. I knew whoever turned up was going to be the killer. But … I can’t even.
And after that confrontation it’s a birthday party and the end except Hello Mobster saying ‘you owe me.’ WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
What I want is an actual romance starring One Good Cop (recovered) and his nice-guy boyfriend. One in which two people have normal lives with friends and family and ordinary job conflicts like oh you finished your dissertation and now you need to find a job which means maybe we can’t stay together unless I leave my job as a cop. Which: why wouldn’t he, this town is a trash fire. Grrr.