Genre: Gay Paranormal Mystery/Thriller
Length: Novel
Series: Covert Investigations #1
RUSS CALLAHAN is a private investigator. His job is to expose other people’s secrets, and when he gets an assignment to uncover the wrongdoer in Accelera Pharmaceutical Labs, it becomes clear Daniel Langston is a man of many secrets. Not only that, but Daniel seems to always be one step ahead of Russ, and knows more about him than anyone should.
Russ quickly uncovers a plot that could ruin Accelera, ruin him, and put everyone he’s ever loved in danger. If he doesn’t act, the bad guys could walk away, but if he exposes Daniel, he exposes his own secrets. How far is Russ willing to go, to keep those secrets buried?
The cover of the book suggests the genre for this story is MM Paranormal Romance, but I don’t believe the MM classification works for this title, and not because I didn’t like it–I did–but more because the heat factor is simply too low. It’s not explicit. It’s also self-reportedly a “slow burn romance”, but again, the romantic elements weren’t strong enough to warrant a Romance heading (that’s not a bad thing). The wary relationship between Daniel and Russ was enhanced by a certain attraction, yes, but their relationship struck me as sort of a Mulder-and-Scully dynamic, in how they go back and forth with each other. I’m a sucker for a good Mystery/Thriller, especially when there are paranormal or supernatural elements woven in. The icing on the cake was this book being LGBT.
All said and done? This was the perfect book for me.
I’ve been reading Wolf Specter since he wrote an usual Grizzly bear shifter mpreg short story. There was something about his writing: the gritty diction, the unusual suspects, and the twist, which I found compelling. While quite a few voices in gay fiction were writing whatever was hot, Wolf Specter was quietly penning mpreg that was off-the-wall, and at times more real than anything I was reading elsewhere. He quickly became an auto-buy for me.
Which meant, when Lines of Sight was published, I clicked on it, and started reading. I didn’t inspect the cover, I didn’t peruse the blurb–no–I just started reading. And I was in for a pleasant surprise.
Wolf Specter is obviously a pen name, so who knows what else he has written, but until Lines of Sight, the majority of his work under this pen name has been MM Paranormal Mpreg, and they’ve all been novellas or short stories. A few paragraphs into this book, I knew something was different. I rechecked the cover–this wasn’t a mpreg. And not only that, but Specter was teaming up with another debut author. His diction was more polished, rounding out the rough edges.
“Hm, go Coyle,” I thought. And my respect for Specter grew.
Specter consistently improves on his work (there aren’t any unnecessary epithets in this story), so apparently he’s not only versatile in his writing, but he listens, and adapts. Wow. How hot is that (okay, maybe that’s just my kink)? Of course, how much of this work is Coyle, how much of this is Specter, and is Specter more of a brand, or a person? Who knows, who cares. (I’ve learned to steer away from making friends with a pen name.) Point is: this story is fucking good, and it does great things for gay fiction. I predict great stories to come from this author. Enjoy the ride.
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B. A. Brock is a reviewer for DSP and QSF. He enjoys reading, writing, running, family and food, and fills his life with bent bunk. He especially loves to discuss LGBTQ+ literature. His website is http://www.babrockbooks.com. You can find him on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/BABrockBooks.