Review: This book was amaXing!!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2014
So, I’ve stated before I’m somewhat obsessed with SE Jakes Hell or High Water series.  When the spin-off became available of course I was all over that.  Add to that as soon as I heard Cillian would be getting his own story I was happy as that would mean his grubby hands would be far from Prophet.  This was, for me, a win win situation.  I dove in head first.  Cillian is searching for John.  It’s his single most important objective.  He’s got informants all over the place looking for the man.  While meeting an informant at a night club, Cillian takes the opportunity to relieve some stress and heads to the back room of the club for a moment of anonymous sex.  Cillian finds himself manhandled and completely owned in a way he hasn’t allowed or wanted in years.  He is haunted by the encounter.  Mal is searching for John and he’s using Cillian as a means to find him.  Having sex with Cillian in the back room of a club wasn’t necessarily the best move, but it killed several birds with one stone.  Mal then breaks into Prophet’s laptop and accesses his email and Instant Messages.  Mal decides he wants to start up a flirtatious banter with Cillian much like Prophet has, but he has plans to take it farther.  Amidst the flirtatious banter with a friend of Prophet’s, Cillian’s informants are being murdered.Over the course of a few days, Cillian and Mal begin to IM each other some very explicit things as well as some very personal things.  Each man is so accustomed to having the upper hand they’re slightly stunned at the depth of the intimacy they’ve managed to achieve over such a short time through such an impersonal medium.  As though neither man realized he had to guard himself against an avatar picture and flashing cursor.  Their “anonymous” action in the backroom of the night club is also continuing and the lines between reality, fantasy, and work are blending and blurring.  Then both men have their already shaky foundations destroyed.Okay, this book was amazing.  To put this in perspective, Barb has never shamelessly stolen one of her reviewers’ books before.  I cannot blame her for this at all.  As I said, this book was amazing, not only for a different perspective on Tom and Prophet, but for Cillian and Mal.  These men have some serious trust issues to work through!  As trying and as difficult I find Tom and Prophet’s relationship to be I have to say it’s a cake walk as compared to what faces Cillian and Mal.  Their problems also put into perspective Prophet’s overwhelming desire to protect Tom.  I had assumed Prophet was being unduly dramatic in his need to shield Tom.  Tom is a competent adult and law enforcement officer.  This book made Tom seem like a sweet and abandoned babe in the woods surrounded by a pack of wolves.  To say the very least, Cillian and Mal are in a more dismal and much more dark situation.To me, the most fascinating aspect of the nascent relationship between Cillian and Mal is their failure to protect themselves in an online interaction.  These men are super spies, they kill and leave no trace, they protect an unknowing and thankless society, then go back to their anonymous hotel rooms and pour their deepest secrets onto a cold and inhuman communications mainframe in a desperate attempt to ease their loneliness.  This was such a realistic and human flaw.  Both men knew they were going too far and exposing too much but the attention was too good to ignore.  Their need to be understood was too great.  So, these men are now stuck in the unenviable position of relying on someone for emotional support and now that person is the last person to whom they can turn for emotional support.  These guys are so screwed and we have around a year til the next book in their series.  Someone distract me, please.Originally posted at "Live Your Life, Buy The Book"