Customer Reviews

Task Force

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book takes up a couple of weeks after Murder Most Gay ends. It is a good sequel, but if you haven't read MMG you won't be lost. It is the continuing story of Pat, his boyfriend Dean and Hank-Pat's partner at work. Someone is killing gay men again and Pat and Hank end up on the Task Force to find the killer. Pat and Dean's relationship is evolving nicely and Hank finds a boyfriend as well. It is not a mystery since we are told fairly early on who the killer is, but is more about how they catch him. There were a few editing issues that were annoying, but not too hard to ignore.

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 7/10

PROS:
- The plot is good. Some of the book is just the everyday ins and outs of the life of a beat cop, which I found interesting in and of itself, and the murder investigation is exciting once it gets going: I was surprised at the identity of the killer, and I'm a pretty big fan of the main character, Pat; he's one brave dude.
- There's a secondary romance between Pat's partner and a 7-11 clerk that I thought was really cute. The presence of that relationship allows for some depth in the "romance" department: we have Pat and Dean, who we saw get together in Murder Most Gay and who are now practically an old married couple (even though they haven't been together all that long), and we have Hank and Shawn, who are still in the new-love phase in this story.
- I like that this book is written by a verifiable tough guy (Simpson is a veteran, a former police officer, a former federal agent, etc.) and that his characters are verifiable tough guys yet they still use sweet pet names for each other. I've known one couple like the ones depicted in Simpson's books (a cop and a construction worker), and those guys used words like "babe" and "sweetheart" when they were talking to each other. I think a lot of female m/m authors are afraid to let their characters use words like that because they think endearments detract from the characters' masculinity.
- Again, as is the case with every book I've read by this author, there's lots of realistic-sounding cop jargon and descriptive language. (And some of the stranger dialogue is explained for those of us who might not know exactly what it means.) It's easy to get swept up in the story's setting.

CON:
- The writing contains some of the same elements present in the other 3 Simpson books I've read before this one. Namely, the author struggles a bit with telling rather than showing as well as redundant exposition/dialogue. (Example: "He was hoping to surprise Dean by having supper ready for him when he got home. ...`I was going to have dinner waiting for you when you got home.'") But this is the best written of any of the 4 I've read, and the writing skill demonstrated in this book is leaps and bounds above Condor One, which was the first book I read by him.

Overall comments: Simpson has sort of gotten under my skin; each book I've read by him has been better than the last, and I'm not sure whether it's because I'm reading them in the order in which he wrote them (I think I am, but I'm not positive) and his writing is improving, or because I'm just developing a taste for his storytelling. The sex scenes in his books are realistic and not overly graphic, and even if the writing isn't as good as some other authors', Simpson has consistently good stories.

The first book was better in the story but this book really developed the characters and the lives of our main characters. It took 60% of this book to really get deep involved in a case. I do have to say I fell in love with the characters do to the story. There was also a lot of sexual content in this book that some people may not like but I am ok as long as it is part of the story.

Their "rookie" days behind them, Prince George County (Maryland) police officers Pat St. James and Hank Capstone are now on solo patrols, dealing with the majority of mundane police calls on their overnight shifts. They're also settling in a bit in their private lives, Pat with his live-in lover, Dean, and Hank with a hunky boy-toy he ironically met in a convenience store! They deal with an attempted blackmailer, threatening to "out" them to their fellow police officers. Two cases of murder, involving young men who had been drugged, raped and strangled, lead to familiar territory with Pat going undercover as "bait" for the killer, who turns out to be a high profile public official.

Simpson indicates this as a "sequel" to his early "Murder Most Gay" crime novel, featuring the same characters, and it is best read after reading the first book. Enough detail about prior events is provided to allow it as a stand-alone read, but an empathy with the characters from the previous book would add to the enjoyment of the read.

It is a thin line that authors of "erotic novels" walk, trying to keep the balance of sexually-explicit content to the point where it adds, rather than detracts, from the pacing and plot of the book. It's a line that Simpson hit perfectly in the first book, but I think the erotic passages here - which were all in the first half of the book, delaying the start of the "real" story, dragged the book down. Still, it is a clever and original crime novel, with a refreshing "real" take on police work, and I give it four stars out of five.