Shep Collins runs a halfway house for LGBTQ kids and is a prominent figure in St. Louis’s gay community. When he disappears, however, dark truths begin to emerge about Shep’s past: his string of failed relationships, a problem with disappearing money, and his work, years before, as one of the foremost proponents of conversion therapy.
When Shep’s body turns up at the halfway house, the search for a missing person becomes the search for a murderer.
As North and Shaw probe for answers, they find that they are not the only ones who have come looking for the truth about Shep Collins. Their investigation puts them at odds with the police who are working the same case, and in that conflict, North and Shaw find threads leading back to the West End Slasher—the serial killer who almost took Shaw’s life in an alley seven years before. As the web of an ancient conspiracy comes to light, Shaw is driven to find answers, and North faces what might be his last chance to tell Shaw how he really feels.
Comment: This is the second installment in the Borealis Investigations trilogy. I thought the first book to be rather average and too focused on elements I wasn't as fond of but I had hopes this one would improve on them.
Shaw and North are back to their regular work, even though the effects of the case they just solved are still being felt by them, in how they are dealing with each other. Then, while each one of them comes to terms with how they really feel about the other, a new case comes along. Their secretary Pari asks for help when her girlfriend's boss Shep goes missing and they learn he manages a youth house for LGBT kids, but in the past he had worked for a group that did "conversion therapy". Thinking this might be connected, they look into everyone who knew Shep and the more they learn, the more complicated everything becomes. While investigating, they also find a clue connecting this case to the one that caused Shaw to have been the surviving victim of a serial killer. What is going on, and what will come next?
I liked this story a little more than the first, overall, but I will grade it the same anyway because the element I wish I could see improved wasn't, which is how the personal relationship between the characters is portrayed. I get it that this author probably imagines countless ways for the characters to deal with serious and deep emotions, but I think this is dragged too much and the constant verbal battle between them is more often tiring than amusing for me.
In fact, while things change and we get to see how their feelings for one another keep demanding their attention, and the need to deal with them as things progress in all aspects of their lives adds up the drama, it also becomes difficult to see why North and Shaw cannot simply have a conversation, especially since they both learn stuff that should give them the impulse to do it. But no, the aim here is to drag on the drama, the tension and to make them suffer before they feel stable in becoming a couple.
If things between them had been presented in another way, perhaps this would not distract me this much, but the banter between them and the things they deal with, and what we learn from their inner monologues makes me think they should be in therapy and not looking to become boyfriends. I know the next book is the final one, so I think we will have closure and an HEA, but the road there didn't have to be this complicated, I think.
Regarding the plot, the story was quite interesting, actually. I liked the case they were investigating and the way the clues started to fit, especially when the method seems to be the following: Shaw and North are given a case with someone telling them about it in their own way, and then an idea here, an idea there, it turns out that the version they had wasn't not the full truth. If not for the constant bantering between the main characters, which I find too distracting in inopportune moments, I think the development of the investigation would be even better.
While the central case is being exploited, another situation is ongoing, which I've noticed here more than in the first book. So, one of the reasons for the guys to have started their investigation agency is partly caused by an experience Shaw had in the past, with a guy who targeted gays, and killed them, as it happened to someone Shaw had a date with once. Shaw is still dealing with the trauma of all that, and it seems things were not as solved as it seemed. Thus, in this book, we got to have some scenes about it and I think it will also be a key element in the last book.
No comments:
Post a Comment