3.5 stars. Entertaining cop/profiler mystery. ( )

How to describe ‘Acts of Passion’? On the surface, it’s a cleverly written murder mystery solved by the new pairing of Detective Jack Cade and his new profiler, Dr. Michael Di Santo. It’s their first case together, and that alone leads to many fun situations and interesting revelations as they get to know each other and the way they work. But it’s also a romance between two lonely men who are very career-focused and have trouble finding partners who can understand and deal with their dedication. More than that, it is a cross-cultural encounter because, while he has grown up in the US, Michael is also half Japanese and brings the knowledge and attitudes of that culture into play quite frequently. All in all, this is an exciting, action-packed book with fascinating characters and a budding relationship that grows very intense very quickly on both the physical and the emotional level. The combination of these factors meant I was unable to stop reading once I had started – and stayed up even later than usual.

Right after the short prologue, which is chilling and sets the scene for the rest of the novel, Jack is confronted with one of the most gruesome murders of his career. At almost forty he is no newbie, but finding a seemingly normal man having committed what Jack thinks is hara-kiri, the Japanese form of ritual suicide, has him more rattled than usual. Jack has a feeling he’ll need his profiler’s help on this case, but the regular guy has apparently retired, and Jack soon meets his successor, Michael. Michael is around Jack’s age, behaves like an absent-minded professor, and has some really weird habits and behaviors. But all of that doesn’t take away from the fact he is brilliant, and even though he doesn’t adhere to police procedure, his comments are brilliant and soon have Jack looking in directions he would have never thought of as quickly without Michael’s help.

Michael has a very dark past, a long-ago lover he still seems to be attached to, and intuition for the way a criminal thinks that is almost scary. He is determined to help, and even though some of his methods are unconventional, he gets results. Jack and Michael are attracted to each other immediately, and once they get involved physically, they quickly figure out they are also compatible in other ways. With two pasts to deal with, a few dark secrets are soon unearthed, and the tension between them becomes more than sexual. Neither of them has an easy time of it, but their immediate, almost instinctual understanding is needed if they want to come out of this case alive.

If you like murder mysteries with a romantic touch, if you want to read about two men who are shocked to find someone so compatible in a place they would never have suspected, and if you’re looking for a read that is suspenseful, sometimes brutal, emotionally intense, and has more than enough action in and out of the bedroom to fill two books, then you will probably like ‘Acts of Passion’ as much as I do. It’s a breathtaking story, and I hope there will be more stories about Michael and Jack – soon!


NOTE: This book was provided by Ai Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.
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