Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Dumping Las Vegas
AUTHOR: J.P. Bowie
PUBLISHER: Wilde City Press
LENGTH: 103 pages
BLURB:
When Jerry Peterson’s brother Mike begs for help in paying off a Las Vegas gambling debt, Jerry reluctantly travels to the city he loathes. Things are even worse than he expected—his brother is being held hostage until the debt is paid. Taylor Maitland is in Vegas writing an article on compulsive gambling, an addiction his father was unable to free himself from. When the two men meet, Taylor offers to help Jerry locate his brother and negotiate with the captors. Despite the series of violent events that screw up their plans and have them dogged by two homicidal thugs, Jerry and Taylor are drawn together by their mutual attraction for one another, even finding time in between narrow escapes, to indulge in some hot man lovin’!
REVIEW:
Poor Jerry… He has some family issues. His brother Mike is a compulsive gambler, his dad is long gone (I won’t tell you his drama and give away a bit of the plot), his sister is nosy and can’t seem to find herself a man. His mom seems ok though! So Jerry gets a call from his brother, who has gotten himself in to a mess in Las Vegas. This time a much bigger mess than before. He’s being held hostage, Jerry has to get a whole lot more money than he has in a short amount of time, or Mike will be getting his knees broken. Mike tells Jerry someone will be calling him. That someone is Taylor. They talk, Taylor is willing to help, and Jerry heads off to his least favorite city.
This book is from Jerry’s perspective, so we get to know him much better than Taylor. We only see Taylor through Jerry’s eyes and thoughts. Taylor has his own mess of a family, we learn that he is in Las Vegas researching for an article he is writing about compulsive gambling, when he runs in the Mike and gets sucked in to his drama. He seems like a legitimately nice guy, just wanting to help Mike and Jerry out of a big mess.
They are really in a big mess. I have to say this plot is a bit of a mess as well. Not really in a bad way, but it was all over the place. It felt like a movie that I just barely kept up with as it jumps around. There are big bad thugs who use the f-word (and I DON’T mean fuck) way too much, lots of cheesy dialogue, running around from place to place, several coincidences, frequent hot sex, and a odd but happy ending. Jerry and Taylor both have some crap in their backgrounds that actually make them interesting characters, I did like them just fine. There are times when they communicate quite well, giving each other their life stories, and they do have a good physical connection. It was almost insta-love between them, but luckily they backed off and decided to start dating. The extra characters were slighty annoying, I wasn’t a huge fan of Mike. I appreciated the drama he added to the story, but I wasn’t sure his potential life change (trying to avoid spoilers!) really worked. Their mom and sister were ok, but not great. The Vegas thugs though… a bit too stereotypical for me. Right out of a bad movie plot.
So I liked the two main characters, but not all of the extras characters. The plot was ok, but a little busy for me. The physical connection between Jerry and Taylor was good, the sex worked and they seemed like a good couple. The writing was ok, and I did enjoy the story overall. It was a fun, fast paced, action filled adventure!
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: