Like a little murder and mayhem with your man-on-man romance? Award-winning novelist Josh Lanyon’s first ever collectionof short stories and novellas, in two volumes, will keep you turning pages long into the night.
Volume I includes these witty, sexy, and action-packed reader favorites:
"Cards on the Table"
"Dangerous Ground"
"In Sunshine and In Shadow"
"Snowball in Hell"
I recently purchased both Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Josh Lanyon's Collected Novella's. Sure, I've read some of Josh's novellas but of the 9 stories I'd only read 3 of them so this was a great way to get them all at once.
I read Volume 1 this past week and I just loved it. I truly am a huge Fanyon. That man knows how to write! Not only great mystery's but great relationships. He just has this wonderful way of mixing the two that gets me every time.
Cards on the Table was a fabulous story of an author, Tim, who is writing a book about a 50 year old unsolved murder. Unfortunately he's starting to get warning against finishing the book...like getting pushed down stairs and being held at gunpoint. He asks for assistance from his neighbor Jack, who's a cop. Jack and Tim had gone a few dates about 6 months ago and even had had sex, but when Tim, who is epileptic, had a seizure in bed things cooled off. Jack isn't too excited about what's going with Tim but is grudginly helping. Things start heating up with the details on the unsolved case, between Jack and Tim and the brut that's trying to put a stop to the book.
A great story from start to finish. Tim is so cocky, but yet with his epilepsy he has no control which drives him nuts. Tim, for all of his cockiness is pretty insecure about Jack. He really fell for Jack 6 months ago but thinks that Jack is repulsed by his epilepsy, which he really isn't. There were such twists and turns in the story and though I should have figured out who the murderer was I didn't. I thought it was the most unlikely person and Josh just proved me wrong.
Dangerous Ground was the only one of the 4 stories that I'd read before. This was a great story about Will and Taylor who are special agents, partners and best friends. Things were great until Taylor admitted that he had feelings for Will. In order to try to save their partnership they are camping in the High Sierras but things start going wonky when they find a plane crash and some stolen money. Things heat up with both the criminals and their relationship.
In Sunshine and In Shadow is a short story about 2 gay cops who are also partners. They had started a relationship together but one of them called it quits when he realized that he could lose him so quickly on the job. He just didn't want the emotional tether to be that much tighter if anything happened to his partner. Yep, delusional. lol As if losing you partner and best friend wouldn't be horrible enough. Anyway, one of the men, Kieran lets Rick know that he's going on vacation by himself, he's quit the force and he's moving out of the state. It's a fantastic story about the 2 coming to terms with their feelings.
The last story, Snowball in Hell, is an incredible mystery set back in 1943. Here's the blurb from Josh's site:
It's 1943 and the world is at war. Reporter Nathan Doyle is just back from the European Theater when he's asked to cover the murder of a society blackmailer--a man who, Homicide Detective Matthew Spain believes, Nathan had every reason to want dead.
It's a fabulous whodunit filled with suspicion and a huge cast of characters - and of course hot man-lovin. I didn't have a clue as to who murdered the blackmailer until pretty near the end. There's not necessarily an HEA at the end of the story, but it makes you think that there will be in the end. Just totally worth the read.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries and m/m.
Rating: 5 out of 5