Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Jury of One
SERIES: Lindenshaw Mysteries #2
AUTHOR: Charlie Cochrane
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 298 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2016
BLURB:
Inspector Robin Bright is enjoying a quiet Saturday with his lover, Adam Matthews, when murder strikes in nearby Abbotson, and he’s called in to investigate. He hopes for a quick resolution, but as the case builds, he’s drawn into a tangled web of crimes, new and old, that threatens to ensnare him and destroy his fledgling relationship.
Adam is enjoying his final term teaching at Lindenshaw School, and is also delighted to be settling down with Robin at last. Only Robin doesn’t seem so thrilled. Then an old crush of Adam’s shows up in the murder investigation, and suddenly Adam is yet again fighting to stay out of one of Robin’s cases, to say nothing of trying to keep their relationship from falling apart.
Between murder, stabbings, robberies, and a suspect with a charming smile, the case threatens to ruin everything both Robin and Adam hold dear. What does it take to realise where your heart really lies, and can a big, black dog hold the key?
REVIEW:
After finding a dead body in his school nearly a year ago, Adam would be quite happy to never be involved with another murder investigation again. Sadly for him his boyfriend Robin is a detective and he can’t seem to avoid them. Though he certainly was giving it a right good go for the last couple months.
Their luck breaks, though, when Robin gets called in to investigate the knifing of a man in a neighboring town, and both he and Adam get dragged in (and out) of several different murder mysteries that are a lot more tied together than any one would think possible. With a murderer (or murderers?) on the loose, and witnesses and suspects both determined to drag Adam into the whole mess, Robin will have to rely on more than just his wits and his snarky partner to cut thru the threads that are holding the mess together. Hopefully he and Adam won’t still be standing under it when the whole thing breaks loose.
After a quick reread of The Best Corpse for the Job I was all ready to start Jury of One. I’ve been looking forward to the sequel for a while (since book one was published, to be exact) and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next to Adam and Robin. When all was said and done I was not disappointed in the least. The mystery was just as clever, the characters just as witty, and despite the fact that the “falling” part of falling in love was pretty much covered in the last book, the “love” part was just as great in this one.
One of my biggest hangups in crime and cop type stories is the fact that due to my background I tend to get really picky about policing and how it is displayed in certain books. And really, it isn’t so much as people get things wrong, it is that I get so distracted by what they did wrong I forget to actually enjoy the other parts of the story. I don’t have any problem with that in this series. I love the twisting and looping way the crimes interacted and pulled apart. I love how I was able to just let go and let Robin solve things (or not solve things, sometimes). I just love that I never really had to think Is this how it is actually done? and got to simply enjoy it being done. I still have no clue how the British justice system works (so this book could have got it wrong, right, or a mix of both), but I love a good mystery and this book gave us a great one.
And while I would have loved to have more Adam–and Campbell, Adam’s dog with superhero aspirations–I did really enjoy his part of the story. The parts of the story with him and Robin might have seemed a bit small, but did a good job of bringing the story back down when it had been twisting about trying to tie our intrepid detective into knots. Plus I love watching Adam and Robin trying to figure out where to go with their relationship. No relationship is perfect and it is what comes after the I love yous that really gets my attention.
I had a lot of fun reading this and though it probably prompted me to drink an unhealthy amount of tea (tea and British crime mysteries are tied irrevocably in my mind. I can’t seem to have one without wanting the other) I would not trade the experience for anything. Ok, maybe for like a city block of chocolate and a never-ending cup of coffee, but not much else. I love when I can just sink into a book and forget about everything else. This book was the written equivalent of a…well, a steaming hot mug of tea. A little sweet, a little dark, and a bit dangerous if you’re not careful.
RATING: 
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