An above average murder mystery set in LA. Gay cops don't really last in the LA Police. Dick Hardesty's college friend learns it the hard way. Grey tells a good story where friendship,love, tolerance and ultimately vengeance all play their parts. It's well written and the story takes you along and you want to know what will happen and how all involve are going to get out of it. ( )

When I read the first Dick Hardesty I complained that “unfortunately” this series was long into more than 10 books already and I didn’t want to go back reading all the books for the saucy part; Dorien Grey was kindly enough to list me the books that, according to my love of romance, would be better suit my taste.

Since I indead read book n° 12 and in doing so I spoiled a bit this one, I would not say the name of the who I was searching, and you will not go and read the previous review ;-), but I fell in love for Dick Hardesty and his house-husband. They were such a cute couple, and it was the main reason why I liked so much that book: Dick was not only a good private investigator, he was also a man in love and if I remember well he was not selfish in proving it to his man. Now don’t get me wrong, this series is mainly a mystery, there is only “talk” of sex, but nothing graphic: in a way it’s more important the romance than the “dirty” doing (and you know that I’m joking here, don’t you?).

So basically I asked to Dorien to tell me where and when Dick met his man and Dorien Grey told me that the first time he introduced the man was in The Good Cop. This is book n° 5 and so you well understand that, not only it has an happy ending, but it’s also very much and happily forever ending, since in book 12 they are still together.

So who are the candidate? I don’t remember if Dorien Grey told us exactly how old is Dick, but I imagined him middle thirty or around. He is not yet so old to be considered out of game, but he is still experience enough to have that lived aurea in him. At the beginning of the book Dick meets again with Tom, a former lover from college. Tom is a very handsome man, he was Dick’s steady lover in college, but he is also in the closet. In college Tom had a beard, Lisa, and with Lisa’s girlfriend, Carol, Tom and Dick spent most of their time, of course when they were not spending it alone in Tom’s apartment. When Dick meets again Tom, he is married to Lisa, but his agreement with Lisa and Carol is not changed, and so Dick doesn’t see any reason to not being again “friend” with them. This is what I probably like most about Dick, he is true to himself, he has his own moral, but he is also open enough to admit that he loves sex, and he seems to be very friendly with all his past lovers, some of them are even now a couple with each other, but Dick continues to go out with them like nothing changed, aside from the sex: Dick apparently doesn’t pouch in someone else territory.

The second candidate is Jonathan, a 19 years old wanna-be hustler who, I would say luckily, got scared after his first bad experience with an abusive john: now Dick is trying to help him build a new life, a life where Jonathan can have sex with me since he wants it not for money, a life where Dick is a friend and not an older lover Jonathan has to thank with sex in exchange of help. Dick thinks he is too old for Jonathan, and he doesn’t want to listen to all his friends, that are helping him with Jonathan, that the boy would be a perfect partner for him. First of all, he is too young, and second Dick has now Tom again in his life, and Tom was his biggest crush in college, and you will never forget your first love…

I’m not able to say if I prefer Tom over Jonathan; for sure I find Jonathan very sweet, but this is probably the reason why Dick is weary to love him, Jonathan seems to be fragile and naïve, something that is not exactly in the cons list for the right partner of a P.I. On the other hand Tom is the perfect partner, he is even a cop, but I really don’t like his living in the closet; true, he is not cheating on his wife, and his wife would be probably happy for him if he was to found a lover like her has; and Tom is really a nice man, he is not that he is scared away in the closet, or that he is treating Dick like a dirty little secret. So in the end, for a reason or the other, both Tom than Jonathan are good candidate.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1879194759/?tag=elimyrevandra-20