Reviewed by Dan

TITLE:  Fire and Snow

SERIES:   Carlisle Cops #4

AUTHOR:     Andrew Grey

PUBLISHER:     Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:     200 Pages

RELEASE DATE:   May 20, 2016

BLURB:

Fisher Moreland has been cast out of his family because they can no longer deal with his issues. Fisher is bipolar and living day to day, trying to manage his condition, but he hasn’t always had much control over his life and has self-medicated with whatever he could find.

JD Burnside has been cut off from his family because of a scandal back home. He moved to Carlisle but brought his Southern charm and warmth along with him. When he sees Fisher on a park bench on a winter’s night, he invites Fisher to join him and his friends for a late-night meal.

At first Fisher doesn’t know what to make of JD, but he slowly comes out of his shell. And when Fisher’s job is threatened because of a fire, JD’s support and care is more than Fisher ever thought he could expect. But when people from Fisher’s past turn up in town at the center of a resurgent drug epidemic, Fisher knows they could very well sabotage his budding relationship with JD.

REVIEW:

From the first page of the first book in this series, I’ve been hooked on the Carlisle Cops series.  Mr. Grey does a very good job bringing us into the world of these men, and his characters are well developed and believable.

Fire and Snow is similar in nature to the previous three books in the series.  There is still a drug problem in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and it is growing.  I like how Mr. Grey takes actual modern social problems, like the burgeoning drug issues hitting the streets of small town America, and incorporates them into his books.

JD Burnside is a young man from Charleston, South Carolina, who has recently relocated to Carlisle to avoid a family scandal back home.  His family is not at all supportive of him being gay.  They are of the “It just isn’t proper”, and “What will they think at the country club” mindset.  The only one on his side is his father’s wealthy sister, who has always encouraged him to be who he is.  Now that he is in Carlisle and on the police department, his life is going well, but he seems lonely.

Then one cold November evening, JD spots a young man sitting on a park bench.  When he approaches him and encourages him to go home to the warmth, the man goes, but JD can’t get him out of his mind.

Fisher Moreland is a young man with some issues.  Diagnosed as bipolar following an accident, Fisher has had a hard time of it.  His boyfriend couldn’t handle the changes, and walked away.  His mother wants to see him institutionalized.  His coworkers know him as the quiet guy in the booth signing trucks in and out at the large warehouse where he works.  Inside, Fisher is a lonely man with very low self-worth.

The two men will be drawn together, but is there a fit?  I enjoyed this installment.  It had some drama, some reconciliation, some shady drug dealers, and it also gave us snippets on the characters from the previous three books.  I’m still waiting to see what will happen with the character Terry from book one who is slated to swim at the Olympics in Rio.  Since we’re getting close to those games, I’m guessing the next book in the series will be that story.

I’ll leave you with my only slight negative on the book and the series.  It is starting to seem a little unbelievable that a Borough (town) the size of Carlisle would have so many gay male cops.  I know the stories work, but everyone can’t be gay.  And the books all feel slightly the same.  They seem to sometimes almost follow a common outline.

Slight negatives aside, I recommend this book and its predecessors.  They can be read as standalones, but the characters do pop up in subsequent books, so it would be best to read them in order.  A good example of characters popping up…I could swear that I’ve heard of JD’s aunt in another story, but I read so many that I can’t tell you which one. 🙂

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Dreamspinner Press  

Amazon

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