Fair Play

Fair Play (2014) Josh Lanyon

Elliot and Tucker are mostly settled down, although they still have the trial stemming from the last case to deal with.

Tucker reached over, finding Elliot’s hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing his knuckles. “Can we not talk serial killers before bed?”

When Elliot gets a call in the middle of the night that his father’s house is burning down, he has to wonder whether Roland’s book about his time in The Collective (a 60s anti-war group) is a bigger problem that his father is willing to admit.

“Do you really believe your father has never lied to you?”

“Yes, I believe it. He’s never lied to me. Well, I mean, excluding fostering unquestioning belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and John F. Kennedy. Anyway, I think the first two were mostly my mother.”

One thing I particularly like about this series is the work that Elliot and Tucker put into their relationship.

“You—? Why didn’t you tell me?” There was no pretending that this news wasn’t a shock. And it hurt. To keep something like this secret? Not just for a few hours. For days. Days they had spent together.

In the space of two sentences Tucker had become a stranger.

But Elliot instantly rejected that thought, that reaction. Tucker was right. This wasn’t about Elliot. It wasn’t even about them. It was about Tucker. He made himself focus on Tucker once more, on what Tucker was telling him. Or not telling him.

That could have gone somewhere very different, but both Tucker and Elliot are willing to do the work of their relationship, and I very much like that.

Because relationships are work, and when romances shrug off that work, they do a disservice to their readers.

Considering my day job, THIS totally cracked me up.

He laughed as though Roland had done something delightful. He studied the monitor, clicked, studied the monitor again. Then his face fell. “Holy shit. He has a folder with all his passwords in his mail.”

Yes people. That is a TERRIBLE idea. Don’t do it.

A fair amount happens in this story, besides the mystery of who burned down Roland’s house, and it doesn’t distract at all from the mystery, but rather strengthens it, because life isn’t just one mystery that needs solved–it’s everything happening at once while you’re trying to deal with it.

Publisher: Carina Press
Rating: 8/10

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