Being an openly-gay detective in Birmingham comes with its share of problems. For one, the pay is awful. For another, Jake always gets stuck with the crappy undercover jobs. Like posing as a prostitute to catch the new crime boss in town—a man notorious for rough sex with pretty young rentboys.
Jake’s latest op is fraught with difficulties, all of them men. Like his partner, Mac, who he’s secretly fancied for months. And his new client, Graham, who he keeps sleeping with for reasons far beyond maintaining his cover. And of course there’s the target, Frank Warren, who’s much harder to lure than anyone had anticipated.
The longer the job drags on, the tougher it gets for Jake to juggle his own needs with those of the job. They may be closing in on Warren, but Jake’s heart—and his sense of right and wrong—are slipping through his fingers. Mac is there to back him up, but is he really the man Jake needs? Tough to know among all those lies Jake’s been telling himself and everyone else.
Jake is on a case that requires him to play a rentboy. He’s not thrilled with the job but he knows that he that he fits the description of the type of boys that the perp goes for. One night when he’s on the street he gets propositioned by a john and he takes him up on it. They head to apartment that the department got for him and they actually end up having sex. Jake really likes the john, Graham, as he just doesn’t seem like your regular punter.
Jake feels awful that he actually took money from a customer but he’s in a bit of a financial bind so he’s thinking maybe he can keep the money hidden from the department. It’s not really like him but what’s a poor underpaid cop to do?
Jake’s seriously confused. He’s got the hots for his partner, Mac, and has for quite but Mac is firmly on the heterosexual side of the fence. When Jake gets contacted by Graham again he says he’ll see him again but then there’s the problem of the money again and his own morals. It’s just a confusing time.
This was an interesting book. I liked the internal problems that Jake was having with both his attraction to Graham – not only because he was, supposedly, a customer but also because he was married and Jake was lying to him about who exactly he was. He was so confused and I felt for him. Unfortunately the internal struggle wasn’t quite as emotional as I felt it should be.
Graham was another enigma. I just didn’t know him at all and though we weren’t really meant to I felt like I needed to in order to get a good grasp on the situation. Mac was a great friend and I really admired his strength and his loyalty to his friend.
Though I enjoyed the story and thought it was a good one I just didn’t think that it was long enough for the level of angst. I would have liked to have known more about all of the characters and delved deeper into Jake’s issues.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Wow, that's a lot of internal struggling going on – too bad the story wasn't long enough to deal with it effectively. 🙁
Chris – Yeah it was. Still a good book but it needed a bit more, I thought, to truly deal with the issues.