Review: Very well written mystery with multilayered lead character
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2010
SOME SECONDARY SPOILERS INSIDE - NOTHING ABOUT WHO DONE IT.In my opinion, this book is definitely worth reading if only for the pleasure of getting to know the lead character detective Michael Weiss. And when I say for the pleasure of getting to know I do not mean that the character was very likable or relatable to me all the time. However the character definitely shone and was realistically drawn, and author got in his head good and I could understand his motivations very well, whether he was doing honorable or not very honorable thing. No, Michael Weiss is not terrible person, but there were times when I did not like his attitude one bit. I finished the book and I still do not quite get for example why he ignored his family repeated attempts to communicate with him. It would be one thing if his family was the family of homophobes, but his mother does not know that he is gay and his sister knows and perfectly fine with it. Michael's relationship with Brian throughout the book also made me want to slap Michael repeatedly. Brian was using him for career, Michael knew that, disliked that and continued the relationship and then used Brian for his own purposes, knowing that Brian actually loved him.And that brings me to supposedly the "real" love story of the book - romance between Michael and Sam.  Sorry, but this romance did not work for me at all. I totally did not require a lot of sex scenes or ANY sex scenes in the romantic gay mystery book, really I do not. But as far as I am concerned if author decides to do the starting of romance, no matter how little page space devoted to relationship, reader should feel chemistry between characters. Reader should feel that yes, these two can make it, that there is a reason why they are attracted, why they will make it and stay together if only in reader's imagination. I understand that mine is a subjective reaction of one  reader, but I felt completely cold and not moved when Michael and Sam were both on page. I remember reading a mystery some time ago where the attraction between protagonists was in VERY beginning stage and the interactions between protagonists were probably 5% of page space all together, but OMG in those tiny amount of space whatever we got was HOT, it was convincing, it was marvellous.Here protagonists have more sex than  on 5% of page space and even quite explicit, but as I said it left me pretty cold. I just do not get what Michael and Sam see in each other.