Detective Darren Corliss is hanging by a thread. In between recovering from a near-fatal wound and returning to work at a hostile precinct, he’s struggling to help care for his ailing brother. His partner and boyfriend, Detective Andreas Ruffner, wants to help, but doesn’t know how. And with his own family crises brewing, Andreas is spread almost as thin as Darren.For cops, though, life takes a … takes a backseat to the job. When a stack of unsolved homicides drops into their laps, Andreas and Darren think they’re unrelated cold cases. But when a connection surfaces, they find themselves on the tail of a prolific serial killer who’s about to strike again.
Except they’ve got nothing. No leads. No suspects. Just a pile of circumstantial evidence and a whole lot of hunches. Time is running out to stop the next murder–and to pull themselves back from their breaking points.
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**********Contains Spoilers**********
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This book starts off Andreas and Darren beings pariahs after they solved the case with the mayor, other government officials and cops running/being involved in a dr*g ring. All the cops don’t want to share any of their cases with them even though the case files are piling up on their desks. Cops that snitch on other cops, even if those cops are dirty are bad as cops don’t snitch. Captain Hamilton is forcing them to help out at Precinct Twenty Two since that’s where most the dirty cops worked, including Trent. Trent had a few case files that had hit dead ends on possibly three serial kil*ers. To say that the cops at Precinct Twenty Two were happy with them taking their files was an understatement. Darren is still recovering from being stabbed and dealing with his brother Asher’s illness but he ends up finding a pattern in the three cases which lead to the conclusion that they’re only looking for one serial kil*er instead of three, even though the mu*ders don’t seem to be in the same pattern like usual. The cops from Precinct Twenty Two are harassing Andreas and Darren while they’re investigating this case, when they should be working together to help stop someone becoming the next victim, since the date is fast approaching so the serial kil*er can stick to their pattern. Erin, Andreas’s daughter is working with internal affairs as an intern, and hears the rumours going around that Andreas is a dr*g addict and is HIV positive, when Andreas tells her the truth she’s upset and angry that he’d never told her or her brothers about his status, but they finally sit down to have a proper talk about everything including that he’s bi and that Darren and him are together. He agrees that he’ll tell Ben and Casey about it all as soon as they’ve solved their current case. I’d recommend this story, series and authors.
Wow, what a book! I love Darren and Andreas together. They work so well as partners, and at home they are just there for each other no matter what. While recovering from his wound, Darren gets to experience Andreas in a mother hen mode. He likes the attention and caring since his family is dealing with a serious issue. His brother Asher has deteriorated to the point that he has to be moved to a home. It’s a devastating blow for Darren but Andreas is there to offer a shoulder to lean on when it gets too much.
Andreas finally cracked the den of corruption that is the City Hall. Unfortunately with the multitude of arrests every dirty cops has fallen, and the both of them are blamed for the hardships that their families will face. So while struggling with the mountain of paperwork, he also has to contend with petty accidents intent on humiliating him and Darren. Adding to that is the fact that his daughter Erin has found out his carefully kept secret – that he is HIV positive. While both men struggle to come to terms with everything that’s going on, they get a bunch of cold cases left from the dirtiest cop of them all, Trent. When Darren finds the common pattern, it turns deadly fast.
I loved the case. It was different in a sense that they figured out who it was before anything else. And it showed how much of red tape is involved in police work. That even if you know who the villain is, without proof you’ve got nothing. They work tirelessly to uncover even a shred of evidence pointing at the culprit but they uncover even more than they expected – the killer is smart, vicious and sadistic, he feeds off of human misery and will kill again. They race against time to stop innocent people from getting hurt. It was so well done! I loved it! There is nothing like a tension filled investigation conducted by smart sarcastic detectives who are willing to bend the rules to get to the truth. Wonderful read and I highly recommend it!
Lots of suspense in this page-turner. Government corruption, organized crime, drugs. Who do you trust? Even the cops are suspicious, especially after one of their own uncovers the corruption that leads to a third of the force being arrested. This, along with the first book Risky Behavior, are must-read novels. L.A. Witt is an a-list author. The combination with Cari Z is unbeatable.