Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Hard Fall
SERIES: Deputy Joe #1
AUTHOR: James Buchanan
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: 215 Pages
BLURB:
Deputy Joe Peterson is Mormon and in the closet. Then ex-con Kabe Varghese lands in town on parole. When a tourist falls off the mountain, Joe finds he needs the help of this cliff climbing adrenaline junky to solve the case. Will Kabe tear him apart or does Joe need to fall hard before he can start living?
REVIEW:
“Gay and Mormon don’t cohabit very well.”
When it comes to this story, Joe is not wrong when he utters those words. Unfortunately for Joe, the star of the book, those are two very important parts of himself that he has been struggling to reconcile for many years. Now that he’s met someone he’s actually interested in for more than just a one night stand, the option to keep his sexual preferences a secret might no longer be his choice to make.
This story is told in first person, solely from Joe’s point of view, in a voice that reminded me of the old fashioned cowboy movies I’d watch with my dad as a kid. Even if I hadn’t liked the story I could have happily just listened to Joe’s voice in my head as I read along. I think it’s a combination of his Mormon upbringing and his laid back personality but Joe comes across as one of the most solid, restful characters I’ve ever read. I realize that description makes him sound boring but he’s not that at all. It was more like in the midst of all the craziness happening around him, Joe was a calming center. Even when he gets into a public brawl it’s as though he’s still controlled. Joe has definitely earned himself a spot on my list of most memorable fictional characters.
So what is this craziness that surrounds him, you may ask? It begins with a German tourist falling off a mountain and being found by none other than Kabe Varghese, the hot new guy in town that Joe has been going borderline stalker on since he first saw him. But that’s stalker in a non-creepy way, I’m sure. Although Kabe is recently out of prison and on parole, Joe can’t make himself stay away, so enlisting Kabe’s professional assistance with the case is the perfect excuse to spend time with the younger man.
Now when I say professional assistance what I mean is, Kabe has crazy mountain climbing skills and Joe doesn’t believe in climbing alone. There is a lot, truly a lot, of mountain climbing information and jargon in this book. Oddly enough, I really enjoyed it, but I didn’t get it. I love reading books about things I know nothing about – mountain climbing – yet I think I only understood maybe half of what I read in relation to that. However it was enough to still understand whether they were going up or down the mountain and that was good enough for me.
The sex in this story absolutely took me by surprise. It is as though our calm Mormon Joe needs to release all those pent up emotions somehow and instead of ripping off his shirt and turning into the Hulk, he rips of Kabe’s clothes and turns into an ass licking, kink driven, sex maniac who gets so wild during sex he feels the need to apologize afterwards. No really Joe, I don’t think any of us have a problem with it. And this book certainly deserves an award for most creative blowjob location I’ve ever read.
But of course, it can’t be all smooth sailing for Joe because obviously, there’s just no story in that! So what happens when gay and Mormon collide? Well, I recommend you read this book and find out. To all of those like me who have been meaning to read this book forever but have yet to get around to it, just do it. My only regret is I now have to fit the rest of the series into my already overfull reading schedule. There’s just never enough reading time.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: