Narrated by Tristan James
Pretty Pretty Boys is the first book in Gregory Ashe’s six-book series about Missouri-based detectives Emery Hazard and John-Henry Somerset. I really enjoyed the story, which boasts a well-crafted, intricate mystery and combines it with the difficult, angsty relationship between the two men, who have known each other since boyhood and whose shared history is a complicated one. I’ll say right now though, that while there are romantic elements to the book, they’re low-key and mostly confined to some really delicious sexual tension between the leads, so if an HEA or HFN in every book is a must, I’m afraid you won’t find it here. We’re talking slow burn, with an emphasis on the slooooooooow – although reviews of later books lead me to believe that the guys get there eventually. Each instalment in the series takes place across a fairly short time-span, and the whole series only spans a few months, so it makes sense that the romantic side of things would take a few books to get going. Even though the wait is frustrating…
Anyway. For reasons listeners are not (yet) privy to, Detective Emery Hazard has been forced to quit his post in St. Louis. He’s offered the choice between being demoted to a desk job or keeping his shield and going somewhere else – and chooses the latter option, deciding to return to his home town of Wahredua – which he remembers as a dismal backwater – intent on finally discovering what drove his first boyfriend to commit suicide some fifteen years earlier. The place doesn’t hold many happy memories for him. The only openly gay kid in a small, insular town, he was tormented at school by a group of three boys, and he still bears the scars – both physical and emotional – of that bullying, so returning to Wahredua brings back all those memories and more. He knows one of his three persecutors is dead, and he soon discovers another is a wreck of a man… which leaves him wondering what happened to the third, the town’s golden-boy; the drop-dead gorgeous, charming and popular John-Henry Somerset.
On arrival at the Wahredua PD, he finds out. Somerset – who now goes by Somers – became a detective… and has been assigned as Hazard’s partner.
Naturally, Hazard is furious and wants out – how can he work with Somers after what he did? But Hazard can’t walk if he wants to keep his job AND find out what happened to his friend all those years ago. He swallows his rage and makes it clear to Somers that he’ll work with him, he’ll watch his back as his partner but nothing else. They won’t talk about anything personal, they won’t build a relationship, and they certainly won’t refer to what happened all those years ago.
Somers isn’t surprised by Hazard’s reaction – he deserves it – but is determined to prove to him that he’s a different person now to the stupid kid he was at sixteen. And he really has changed. His regret and shame at the way he treated Hazard are genuine, and as the story unfolds, we learn more about why he behaved as he did which, while not an excuse, does provide a degree of explanation that might have made sense to a confused sixteen-year-old boy.
Set against the background of the complicated, shifting relationship between the two men, and Hazard’s search for the truth about his friend’s suicide is the case of a string of vandalism and assaults which are motivated by bigotry and hatred against the LGBT community. Hazard and Somerset are assigned to investigate the hate crimes, which escalate when an unidentifiable murder victim is discovered in the remains of an arson attack, and a second, mutilated corpse reveals clues suggesting the murders are linked. Things get murky and even more complicated when the local far right-wing group, the Ozark Volunteers, becomes involved – and Somers discovers that his sister-in-law (who we learn had a hand in the breakdown of his marriage) is one of the leaders of the organisation. Wahredua becomes a ticking time-bomb as the opposing hate groups face-off, and Hazard and Somerset face misdirection and betrayal at every turn.
The mystery is gritty, intriguing and very well-executed, but the relationship between Hazard and Somerset is at the heart of the novel and this series. It’s a bold move on the part of the author to have one of the main characters do what Somers did and then redeem him, but I have to say that he accomplishes that feat incredibly well. Somers is clearly a very different person now, and by the end of the book, Hazard has accepted both that and the trust that’s growing between them. They have also both acknowledged – to themselves – that the attraction that sparked between them when they were younger has never really gone away and are both determined to ignore it and set it aside. The problem is that they can’t. Hazard can’t understand how he can be so strongly attracted to someone he should hate; Somers is still repressing those long-held feelings, and even though he knows he’s bisexual, the only time he’s really prepared to admit it to himself is when he’s roaring drunk. His marriage has been in trouble for a while and he’s turned increasingly to drink as consolation; and since his wife left and refuses to allow him to see his young daughter, his drinking has got worse. Intuitive, personable, intelligent and well-liked, he’s a good detective, but deep down, he’s a fuck up who runs when the going gets tough (usually towards the bottle).
Hazard is Somers’ polar opposite in almost every way. Dark and brooding where Somers is fair and outgoing, abrupt and socially inept where Somers is relaxed and charming, Hazard is clever, methodical and logical; his strengths lie in his deductive abilities and laser-sharp instincts and he has zero fucks to give about being nice to people. But like Somers, his personal life is a mess. He’s described as being an attractive, physically imposing man, yet his self-esteem issues have clearly driven him to make poor decisions when it comes to relationships. Unsurprisingly, he struggles to reconcile his memories of Somerset the boy and Somers the man, and it’s an uphill battle for him all the way.
Tristan James has narrated the first three books in the Hazard and Somerset series, and I’m hoping the other three will follow. He’s an experienced and reliable narrator with an attractive voice, and I generally enjoy listening to him, although there’s one aspect of his performance here that’s a little disappointing. I liked his characterisation of the two leads; Hazard’s deeper tones contrast nicely with the slightly higher pitch assigned to Somers, and I particularly liked the way Mr. James injects a sense of breezy good-nature into Somers’ voice, which perfectly reflects his character. But even though both men are portrayed in a way that made it easy to tell them apart, there were quite a few occasions when it sounded as though one man would begin a sentence and the other would finish it, or when they sounded too similar and I had to rely on the dialogue tags to work out who was supposed to be speaking. I had to back up sometimes to check, which took me out of the flow of the story. Fortunately, I didn’t notice any problems like that with the fairly large cast of disparate secondary characters; Mr. James employs a variety of accents and timbres to differentiate them from one another and does a great job of conveying their personalities – Upchurch’s smarminess, and Nico’s youthful confidence, for instance – to the listener.
I’ve found a new obsession in the Hazard and Somerset mysteries, and will definitely be following the series to the end. The writing is very strong, the mystery and relationship elements of the story are cleverly and skilfully woven together, and Hazard and Somerset are complex, flawed and compelling characters. Had it not been for the inconsistencies in their portrayals, I’d have given the narration a bigger thumbs-up; as it is, I’m recommending the audiobook of Pretty Pretty Boys – but with that one caveat.
Caz
Buy Pretty Pretty Boys by Gregory Ashe on Amazon
