Badlands, Morgan Brice

Pain from the past drives these two men in their everyday lives but with a serial killer on the loose, they'll need to work together to stop them. It's never as simple as becoming a team, though, because circumstances are against them at every turn. They'll need to get to the bottom of it all before their pride and a killer drive them apart with deadly intent.

Simon and Vic were both great characters.  Not only did they have different backstories, duh, but they had distinct personalities and two distinct voices.  Often you get stories where each character has their own unique history but their speech and affectations aren't dissimilar enough to get a clear sense that the two men are very different.  We end up relying on their backstory to paint two obviously different men but the whole narrative reads somewhat smoothly because it kind of feels like all the same voice.  Not so with these men.  They're written well and are discernible from one another in a way that enhances the story.

I liked that Simon wasn't willing to make excuses or apologies for his talents when faced with Vic's skepticism.  But really it wasn't Vic's skepticism that was a problem, it was his fear and regret.  All of this is resolved satisfactorily even though we see Vic's struggle between career, perception, and love.

The villain was slightly over-the-top but believable...mostly.  The magic part on behalf of the villain felt like a stretch.  How did they know to use it?  How did they get introduced to it?  Why turn to magic when explosives would have done the same thing?  There were also the questions of Vic's past that alluded to a connection deeper than the overarching idea/practice of magic.

I liked the two men, the way they came together wasn't all "hot sex can fix anything."  Instead, we got two men with two very different lives that they tried to blend together despite the difficulties.  There was more to their relationship than passion and I could absolutely respect that.  At times the details overwhelmed the flow of the story and made it feel like it was dragging.  And a couple of details should have been described right away but were left unexplained for another couple chapters that left me with a nagging/wondering feeling that distracted me from what was happening.  Other than that, the story was very good and I enjoyed it, my favorite aspect being the two men and their relationship.

Oh, and a side-note, doesn't the guy on the cover look like a tatted-up version of Shia LeBeouf?

*$4.59 on Amazon!