The Man With the Glass Eye by Cole McCade

Criminal Intentions by Cold McCade: Season One, Episode Three: The Man With the Glass Eye

Narrated by Curt Bonnem

I listened to and reviewed the first two books in Cole McCade’s addictive Criminal Intentions series when they came out in 2022, but didn’t get around to reviewing the third for some reason – so I thought that with the rest of the series due to release in audio over the next few months, I’d rectify that! A quick recap; Criminal Intentions is a long running series featuring the same central couple (there are twenty-nine books so far with more to come), and is divided up into three ‘seasons’ of thirteen books each. In this first season, each book comprises one case for homicide detectives Malcolm Khalaji and Seong-Jae Yoon, but there’s also an overarching plot across the series, so I really would suggest starting with book one – The Cardigans – if you’re intrigued by this premise. The central romance, the characterisation and character exploration develop throughout, and the scope of the series as a whole means that the author has time to really delve deeply into what makes Malcolm and Seong-Jae tick, to explore how their backgrounds have made them into the people they are today, and also to develop the important recurring characters so that they, too, become people we care about and want to keep tabs on.

As the two leads are homicide detectives, it’s not surprising that there are some disturbing scenes to be found here, and these stories can go to some dark places when considering the motivations of the killers. The first chapter in each book usually depicts the murder to be solved from the PoV of the victim or killer; the author includes a list of warnings at the beginning of each book which can be read using the “Look Inside” feature at Amazon if you want to check anything out.

Okay, so on to the actual book.

At the beginning of The Man With the Glass Eye, Malcolm and Seong-Jae are called to the scene of the murder of Declan Lutz, a drug addict who, from the placement of the bullet and the way the body fell to the floor, was clearly killed execution style. But who would go to the trouble of putting a hit on some random junkie? The apartment is pretty sparse but something about it niggles at Seong-Jae, and he realises that while the signs are not obvious, the place was definitely searched, so the killer was there to look for something as well as to kill Lutz. When Seong-Jae finds a matchbook from a club named The Red Dragon – which was owned by Marion Garvey, the nightclub owner who was murdered a week earlier (Junk Shop Blues) – he and Malcolm recall their suspicions that Garvey was somehow involved in the local drug trade and decide that maybe a visit to some of Garvey’s old haunts is in order. But not an official visit – if they do that, the new owner is likely to clam up, so Malcolm suggests they should go out for a drink. And maybe even a little dancing. Seong-Jae is not impressed, but agrees to go.

The tightly-woven plot is intriguing; another murder leads Mal and Seong-Jae to the realisation that someone is taking out “low-level” people connected to Garvey, many of them listed as “floaters” who would move between clubs and work wherever needed. Once the connection is made, it’s a race to find the next victim before the killer does – without getting caught in the crossfire.

In terms of the storyline, this book poses more questions than it answers and is clearly setting up future stories and more ties to the series’ overarching plot, so – for me anyway – the best part is the progression of the relationship between Mal and Seong-Jae. Cole McCade creates some of the most amazing sexual tension I’ve ever read in this series, and in this story, what has so far been a strong simmer reaches a slow boil. That Mal has been intrigued by Seong-Jae since they met has never been in question, but here we see that Seong-Jae is also in the grips of something that, to him, is an unprecedented and unwanted complication, and that he has no idea what to do about it. We still don’t know much about his background or the reasons for his move to Baltimore from LA; he’s closed off and isolated which makes it easier to understand why he’s so bewildered by this attraction, especially as he is well aware that “the old wolf”, as he’s nicknamed Malcolm in his head, rarely keeps it in his pants and has a different bed partner every night. (Seong-Jae knows this because he’s usually the one dragging Malcolm out of bed for work in the mornings – see the beginning of this book!). He comes off as cold and aloof, but that icy façade is slowly starting to crack around Mal, and those little glimpses of humour and occasional warmth only make that magnetic pull Malcolm is already experiencing even stronger.

The lets-pretend-we’re-a-couple-for-the-job trope might be a cliché but in Mr. McCade’s hands, it’s sensual and deeply erotic even though they’re doing little more than look and touch – and then, that kiss… gah! All in the line of duty, of course. (Keep telling yourselves that, guys!) Their chemistry is incendiary, even in quieter scenes like the one in which Mal, after helping Seong-Jae buy a new suit, lends him a tie to go with it. Yes, tie-tying is also something of a romance cliché as an excuse for two characters to get physically close, but here, it’s the first time Seong-Jae learns that Malcolm was married (and that it didn’t end well) and is also an indicator of Mal’s growing trust as he gives Seong-Jae something (the tie he wore at his wedding) that holds so many important memories for him. And then there’s the ‘lean’ that happens at a frustrating point in the investigation and when Malcolm thinks Seong-Jae is deliberately shutting him out:

A warm, angular weight pressed against him from behind – a tall familiar frame, the soft felting of that long black coat, body heat and the scents of diesel and musk.

Malcolm stilled. Seong-Jae leaned lightly against him, pressed back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder, his weight a quiet encroachment of solidity and stability. His hands hung loose at his sides, and one brushed Malcolm’s hand where it fell at his thigh, their fingers just touching. Malcolm’s breaths hitched and he closed his eyes again, struggling not to turn around…

He spoke a million words with every little touch, even when he said nothing at all.

There are lots of these little but perfect moments in this story that are slowly revealing how these two feel about each other and how out of their depth they are with these really big feelings. Their working relationship is still absolute dynamite – almost from the start, and even though they frustrated the hell out of one another, their different approaches and thought-processes just slotted together to run like well-oiled cogs in a machine. They still frustrate the hell out of each other at times, but there’s a sense that the sharp edges are very slowly being smoothed away, while at the same time, they’re trying to tip-toe around this new development. The tip-toeing can be frustrating when you’re rooting for a couple to get a clue and get together, but there’s also something delicious about a slow burn, especially when it’s as well-done as this one is.

I enjoyed Curt Bonnem’s narration in the previous two books, so I went into this one with a clear expectation of what the main characters would sound like and confident that I’d be settling in for another strong performance. The pacing is good, the secondary characters are portrayed appropriately and clearly differentiated, and the recurring ones – Anjulie, Sade, Huang, Sten – are easy to identify aurally and sound as they did in previous books. Mr. Bonnem’s interpretations of Mal and Seong-Jae are superb and a perfect fit – and will be forever the way I hear them in my head when I’m reading the books (I admit, after listening to books 1-3 last year and with no indication at that time as to whether any more would be released, I switched to print and am now almost at the end of season two!). He does a terrific job of fleshing out their very complex personalities – injecting Malcolm’s dialogue with emotion and empathy and conveying Seong-Jae’s more reserved nature through a very measured and deliberate style of delivery – and of bringing out the humour in their bantering exchanges which reveal just a little bit of the real Seong-Jae behind the thick walls he’s built for self-protection. I also like that Mr. Bonnem makes a clear distinction in tone in the narrative from each of their perspectives; narrative doesn’t sound like dialogue, but there’s a subtle difference in each PoV which works well and helps the listener to recall whose head we’re in at any one point! On the subject of PoVs, the author includes others here – notably Anjulie and Huang – and there will be others introduced as the series progresses.

The Man With the Glass Eye doesn’t work as a standalone, but as part of the Criminal Intentions series, it provides more pieces of an intriguing puzzle and signals that the romance between Mal and Seong-Jae may at last be getting off the ground. It’s not always an easy listen – the author doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to violence, as I’ve said – but fans of strongly-written romantic suspense featuring compelling leads and a relationship that drips with sexual tension should definitely have this series on their radar

Caz

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Buy The Man with the Glass Eye by Cole McCade on Amazon