The Same Breath by Gregory Ashe

Narrated by J.F. Harding

Gregory Ashe’s latest series – The Lamb and the Lion – introduces listeners to another of his wonderfully imperfect but perfect odd-couple pairings in the form of an uptight, existentialist wildlife veterinarian and a damaged freewheeling con-man who, in book one of the series – The Same Breath – team up in order to solve a murder. All the hallmarks of Mr. Ashe’s work are here: complex, flawed principals you can’t help falling in love with (even when you want to bang their heads together!), clever, twisty plots with a heavy dose of gritty realism, sparkling, often laugh-out-loud dialogue, and an intensely powerful connection between the leads that permeates the story. I read the book back in September when it came out, (I chose it as one of my Best of 2020) and have been waiting on tenterhooks for it to come to audio. Having J.F. Harding narrating this series is the icing on the cake; he did an outstanding job with They Told Me I Was Everything and I can tell you right now, that he absolutely nails this one, too.

A vet with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Teancum – Tean – Leon lives a quiet life of work, walks with his dog Scipio and the occasional distress call from his elderly neighbour about her ever growing clowder (yes, really!) of cats. He’s in his mid-thirties, he’s smart and dedicated to his job – but he’s also deeply insecure and struggling to break free from – or learn to live with – the conditioning instilled by his Mormon upbringing, and he’s got a deeply fatalistic outlook that manifests in his tendency to spout random facts and figures (if you want to know the likelihood of bear attacks or the frequency of whale song, he’s your guy!) or ponder the finer points of nihilistic philosophy. He’s a glass-half-empty kinda guy most of the time, but he’s endearing with a dry sense of humour… and he’s dreadfully lonely.

A week before the book opens, one of Tean’s colleagues died in suspicious circumstances, but the police have so far turned up nothing. Not that they’re trying very hard; whenever Tean asks Detective Ammon Young – a childhood friend and the man with whom Tean is having an affair (it’s an extremely fucked-up and toxic relationship) – for news, Ammon gets annoyed and shuts Tean down. But Tean has received some odd phone calls lately – just silence on the other end – and noticed, on one occasion, that he was being tailed back to the office by a black SUV. It makes him uneasy, but without anyone to take his concerns seriously, he’s at a dead end.

Jem Berger is a grifter, a good-looking, charming con-man who makes a living working whatever scams he can come up with and get away with, while also looking out for his foster brother, Benny. Jem was bounced around the system for years before being sent to juvie for defending himself and Benny against their violent foster mother, and since getting out has done whatever he needed to do to survive, from blackmailing scumbags wanting to buy child porn to picking up guys in swanky hotel bars to get a decent meal and a bed for the night.

Jem and Tean cross paths when Benny disappears. Benny is passionate about environmental issues, which has brought him into contact with the DWR and Tean quite frequently when he’s turned up to rant about things like poaching, sick Elk herds, and fish being poisoned by sewage. He’s been dismissed by many as a crackpot, but over the years, Tean has found much of his information to be quite accurate. Benny’s latest claim – that birds were being poisoned – has turned out to be correct, and in fact, Tean was on the way back from investigating it when he noticed the black SUV tailing him. And then finding a stranger – a very attractive stranger – in his office pleading for his help finding his missing brother..? News of Benny’s disappearance is yet another event Tean is sure has to be more than coincidence.

That’s the set-up for the mystery and the starting point for the development of another of Mr. Ashe’s wonderfully awkward, angsty slow-burn romances. The mystery is – as always – clever, well-constructed and tightly written, with the different storylines used brilliantly to do dual duty as an introduction to the characters as well as to set up the plot, gaining momentum until they converge when Jem and Tean meet. That forward momentum continues as the pair realise that Benny’s conspiracy theories were likely not theories at all and that his discoveries may somehow be linked to the death of Tean’s colleague. Watching this unlikely, mis-matched couple work together, their different personalities and skill-sets clicking into place like perfectly fitting puzzle pieces is a delight. Jem’s optimism is the perfect counter to Tean’s pessimism, yet it goes deeper than that; there’s the real sense that the connection these two share is something special, that they see each other in a way nobody else does or ever has, and are comfortable being themselves around each other, which is true even with the caveat that listeners know Jem’s ‘profession’ is going to be an issue somewhere along the line. But Jem doesn’t lie to Tean about what’s important (unlike Ammon, who is a manipulative shit) and their relationship is complicated and messy and sometimes full of such raw emotion it hurts, but it’s full of heartfelt affection, companionship and understanding, too. There’s no question Jem and Tean come to care for each other truly and deeply – but of course, this wouldn’t be a Gregory Ashe book if their road to togetherness was an easy one!

Fresh from a fantastic performance in They Told Me I Was Everything, J.F. Harding turns his considerable talent to The Same Breath and knocks it outta the park. All the secondary roles (and there are quite a lot of them) are distinctly portrayed and clearly differentiated using a variety of timbre and accent, and the narrative is well-paced and easily distinguished from the dialogue (by which I mean that Mr. Harding never uses his “narrator” voice for any of the characters). Best of all by far however, are his superb portrayals of Jem and Tean who are captured flawlessly; Tean’s low, husky rumble is perfect for his slightly “Eeyore-ish” doom-laden pronouncements, while Jem’s higher-pitched, marginally faster speech impeccably describes his more up-beat nature. Mr. Harding displays an instinctual understanding of these characters and the way they relate to each other; the strength of their mutual attraction is there, as is the humour in their teasing banter, Tean’s exasperated affection, Jem’s determination, and the depth of the caring that lurks beneath their easy familiarity. It’s a captivating performance and Ashe/Harding is an author/narrator team that’s hard to beat.

Intelligently written and superbly narrated, The Same Breath gets The Lamb and the Lion series off to a great start. I’m given to understand that we may not get the rest of the series in audio format until the summer at the earliest, but if the other audios are as good as this – and I’m sure they will be – then the wait will be more than worth it.

Caz

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