Cop Out by KC Burn

Narrated by Tristan James

Note: Published in 2014

I’ve had this audiobook in my Audible library for a while; I’m making a concerted effort to listen to titles I bought a while back and haven’t got around to listening to yet!

K.C. Burn’s Cop Out (book one in her Toronto Tales series) is a fairly well done gay awakening/coming out story featuring detective Kurt O’Donnell, whose work-partner Ben is killed in the line at the beginning of the book. Kurt is injured, too, although not too badly, and when he attends Ben’s funeral he begins to learn that he hadn’t know the man he’d worked with for three years at all. Kurt had no idea Ben was gay and had been living with his partner for years; he has no problem with it, he’s just surprised and a more than a little upset that Ben had never told him. Hurting himself, and struggling to deal with survivor’s guilt, Kurt goes to pay his respects to Ben’s partner Davy, and is shocked to discover that the man is in a pretty bad way, so overwhelmed by grief that he’s not taking care of himself at all.

Kurt learns that Davy has no one – no friends or family other than a sister going through a high-risk pregnancy – who can be there for him and he decides to do whatever he can to help. He quickly realises that Ben being so far in the closet has deeply affected the way Davy thinks and acts in some of the simplest situations – such as when he assumes Kurt will worry over the delivery guy thinking they’re a couple. Kurt gets into the habit of going over to Davy’s every day until they both go back to work, but even then, they see each other a few times a week.

As the weeks and months pass, Kurt starts to realise he’s having feelings of attraction towards Davy, although at first he doesn’t recognise them for what they are. He comes from a large, boisterous Irish Catholic family – he’s the youngest – and has never thought to question his sexuality. He’s dated women and had sex with them, but it hasn’t been all that great and most of the time, he prefers his own right hand – but he’s always identified as straight. Yet the way he’s starting to see Davy has him questioning that – and agonising over it. Can he really be gay or is it just some weird infatuation brought about by circumstance that he’ll soon get over? And if he is gay – what then? He sees the way one of his few out colleagues is treated by other cops at the precinct – does he want to put himself in that situation? And what about his family’s reaction? It’s a lot to wrestle with – and it’s not until it’s too late that he finally admits the truth.

Kurt’s self-exploration and realisation he’s gay is well handled; this isn’t GFY so much as it is Kurt’s attraction to Davy bringing him to the realisation that he’s attracted to guys in general, and the way his growing feelings for Davy sort of creep up on him is nicely done, with a good amount of sexual tension and chemistry to create a great slow burn. I particularly liked the description that they’d been dating for months but hadn’t realised that’s what they were doing! The last part of the book – after the crisis moment – feels a bit disjointed though; Kurt’s downward spiral into depression and drinking too much is clearly portrayed, but having him as the sole narrator means we never get to see what Davy is doing or feeling during their months-long separation, and we have to assume that maybe he’s doing a lot of soul searching, too. (Plus, both of them do dumb things that a simple conversation would have resolved.) The lack of Davy as a physical presence in these chapters means the ending feels rushed and is less satisfying than it could have been, and I’d have liked to have seen just a little bit more of their HEA.

There’s a strong supporting cast; we get to meet most of Kurt’s big family as well as his new work-partner Simon, and Simon’s wife Jen, who are both wonderfully supportive. Simon is exactly the sort of partner Kurt needs – a good listener, won’t take any crap and at one point, stops him making a serious mistake professionally. And although Kurt is a cop, there are no mystery/procedural elements in this book; that said however, his job does impact the story in a number of ways and it’s always there in the background.

Tristan James is a decent narrator whose performances normally fall in the B range for me. His voice is distinctive, and he does a good job here with the characterisations of the leads and secondary cast, although I had to wonder why Kurt’s Irish parents spoke with (not very good) Scottish accents – seriously, listening to Kurt’s mother’s dialogue was like listening to nails scraping down a blackboard! Having listened to Mr. James in a fair bit of m/m by now, I’ve noticed that he has a tendency to make any secondary gay characters sound rather camp; Davy’s friends all sound that way, and so does Davy (a bit) towards the end. But it’s a solid performance and apart from the accents, there’s nothing horrible about it; which I know is damning with faint praise, but ‘not great, not awful’ is the best way I can describe it!.

Cop Out is a sweet, sexy and, in places, angsty hurt/comfort story and I enjoyed listening to it. I’m not sure I’ll continue with the series though, as reviews are mixed and I’ve got plenty of other stuff to listen to in my so far un-listened-to Audible selection!

Caz

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Buy Cop Out by KC Burn on Amazon