Reviewed by Carissa

 

TITLE:  Relief Valve

 

SERIES:  The Plumber’s Mate #2

 

AUTHOR:  J.L. Merrow

 

PUBLISHER:  Samhain Publishing

 

LENGTH:  357 pages

 

BLURB:  

 

“If you dig up the past, be prepared to get dirty.”

 

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing since plumber Tom Paretski and P.I. Phil Morrison became connected at the heart, if not always at Tom’s dodgy hip. Neither of their families has been shy about voicing their disapproval, which hasn’t helped Tom’s uneasy relationship with his prickly older sister, Cherry.

 

But when Cherry is poisoned at her own engagement party, the horror of her near death has Tom’s head spinning with possible culprits. Is it her fiancé Gregory, a cathedral canon with an unfortunate manner and an alarming taste for taxidermy? Someone from her old writers’ circle, which she left after a row? Or could the attack be connected to her work as a barrister?

 

Phil is just as desperate to solve the case before someone ends up dead-and he fears it could be Tom. At least one of their suspects has a dark secret to hide, which makes Tom’s sixth sense for finding things like a target painted on his back…

 

Warning: Contains a strong, silent, macho PI; a cheeky, chirpy, cat-owning plumber; and a gag gift from beyond the grave that’ll put the cat firmly among the pigeons.

 

REVIEW:  

 

Tom Paretski is an unclogger of pipes, a finder of hidden things, and catnip to slightly creepy clergy.  He is also a son, a brother, and maybe (fingers crossed) a boyfriend.  None of these things help all that much when a poisoned drink nearly kills his sister at her engagement party.  And while there have been times in his life where he certainly wanted to strangle his sister, he’s not at all on board with anyone else taking their shot at her.  Now he and his lover/boyfriend/childhood tormentor, Phil Morrison, have to figure out what a stuck-up writing group, an old (and recently deceased) neighbor, and some biblical threats might have to do with it all.

 

And if he could figure out how to drop the ‘L’ word (or, you know, get him to take off his wedding ring) to his boyfriend, before everyone winds up dead…that would be lovely as well.

 

I pretty much loved Tom Paretski from the moment he first appeared in Pressure Head (book one in this series), which isn’t all that odd since J.L. Merrow is a particular favorite of mine.  She has a great way of writing her English gentleman (or people) that makes them both uniquely flavored and highly relatable.  I love the way the accents come out in her characters, where they feel so…bloody English.  It is just lovely.  And here, again, it works so well.  Not only with Tom, but with Phil, Cherry, and the whole cast of crazy characters.

 

There are two main mysteries going on in this book–though, of course, they intersect in the oddest and most interesting of places at times.  The main mystery centers on Cherry, Tom’s sister.  There are a lot of suspects, ranging from the slightly odd and sometimes creepy fiancé, Gregory (I don’t care what you say, stuffing dead animals, just so you can have them stare at you from a bookshelf, makes me all squidgy), to the small group of (stodgy and pompous) ‘writers’ in Cherry’s ex-writing group.  Played against all this is the mystery of Tom’s old neighbor, who has left him…something, in her Will–he just has to actually find the damn thing.  Why she has done this, and what it will change in his life, is more like a lead-up to the next story in the series (I presume) but it does lend itself nicely to the whole Cherry mess.  I never did guess correctly, when it came to the who-done-it (which was wonderful), and Merrow did a great job of taking the reader, as well as Tom, through a twisted journey, rather than just plopping the answer down and going “Surprise!”  Looking back, the piece all fit nicely, and what was left unfinished were simply threads to be taken up at a later date.

 

Tom and Phil did rather nicely in this sequel.  We didn’t have the whole does he/doesn’t he pull in the first book to deal with, so at times it felt rather staid, but I really like how their relationship is progressing.  The hot parts were still hot (except when being cock-blocked by damn head wounds), and the sweet parts were subtle enough that I didn’t feel like I was being hit over the head by overzealous cupids–but totally still made me fall right along with Tom and Phil.  I have some high hopes for the next book in the series, where family lives and family secrets are going to collide at rather dangerous velocities, because it will be glorious.

 

Sometimes Tom’s little asides did get a bit tedious.  And there were so many puns in this book that I don’t dare to even count them.  Not that I have anything against puns (or innuendos), but sometimes it was a tad too much.  I however must admit that I was getting a kick out of how many jokes you can make out of Greg position in the church.

 

“Well, if you call it canonisation when you make someone a saint, what do you call it when you make them a canon?”

“Ironfoundry.”

 

I just really enjoyed this book, and am excited to see what is coming next for Tom, because this book certainly ends with one hell of a teaser.  And while I am totally not a fan of taxidermy, I may have even grown to like Greg(ory)–just don’t expect me to be stuffing my lovely cats when they finally kick their furry clogs, because that is just wrong.  The story told a great mystery, and the characters were all nice and shifty.  Totally worth the read (though, reading book one, first, is a good idea).

 

RATING:  

 

BUY LINKS: Samhain , Amazon