Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Alpha Barman
SERIES: J.T.’s Bar #1
AUTHOR: Sue Brown
PUBLISHER: Sue Brown’s Stories
LENGTH: 150 Pages
RELEASE DATE: November 24, 2016
BLURB:
Jake Tyler walked out of Covert Ops two years ago, a devastated, broken man after he discovered his sister brutally murdered by her husband, Riley. Since then he’s found a kind of peace running a rural bar. The last thing Jake Tyler expects is his former team to turn up with grim news. Jake’s ex-brother-in-law has escaped from prison and is heading Jake’s way. The team is here to protect Jake, whether he likes it or not – a decision reluctantly shared by their leader, Jake’s ex-lover Mitch Mitchelson.
Mitch is angry and hurting. The man he trusted – the man he adored more than anything – abandoned both his team and Mitch. Jake never gave Mitch a chance to help or come to terms with his desertion. Regardless of mission protocols, Mitch isn’t about to open his heart again to that kind of pain.
But the strong attraction between them can’t be denied. How are they ever going to work together when Mitch still resents Jake’s disappearance, and to Jake, the team represents everything that destroyed him in the first place? And meantime they wait for Riley to find them… and to settle the threat once and for all.
REVIEW:
I really like this author, and honestly have enjoyed everything I’ve read that she has written. This start to a new series was also enjoyable, but a little bit unexciting in my opinion. I liked it, but I got to the end, which has a line which will lead directly into the next book, and I didn’t have any strong feelings on whether or not I would grab the next one when it comes out. I’m kind of middle of the road on this one, and will have to wait and see.
The entire story takes place in a bar. Okay, to be fair, there are a few scenes outside the bar, but the story is really set at J.T.’s bar. A little hole in the wall out in the middle of nowhere in the heart of the Midwest.
J.T., or Jake Tyler as he prefers to be called now, left the Covert Ops team that he was on two years before when he found his best friend and brother-in-law, Riley, a fellow team member, standing over the body of his wife with a knife in his hand. The wife was Jake’s sister, and Jake’s testimony put Riley in prison. But Jake’s life fell apart. He quit the team and walked out without a word to the love of his life and team leader, Mitch. Then he fell into the bottle and somehow ended up with a bar. I wasn’t super clear how that happened. I also wasn’t clear on what the Covert Ops team actually did, where they were headquartered, etc. I’m curious if that will be developed in the next book, because it didn’t feel like it was in this installment.
Now Riley has escaped from prison and the Covert Ops team has shown up at the bar to protect Jake. The bar customers, a group of ex-military and retired cops are behind him as well, and the book’s core is the group preparing for Riley’s arrival.
I think what kept me from enjoying the book as much as I had hoped, was the whole Riley story. It was a play on the smoking gun story, but in this case the dripping knife. Jake’s testimony put Riley in jail. Riley said he didn’t do it, they had been best friends for life and Jake didn’t even pause to wonder? A little unbelievable to me, if I’m being honest…even if the dead woman was his sister. And then there was Riley’s escape (conveniently while on the way to the hospital) and trip half way across North America to the bar, all while waiting for his appendix to rupture. I had a friend who had their appendix burst, and leading up to it, they could hardly move, say nothing about steal cars and travel a couple thousand miles while avoiding the police. That didn’t seem realistic at all to me.
Another thing which kind of knocked me out of story is a pet peeve of mine. It is when an author gets a word incorrect across cultures. And this time it was a biggie in my opinion. I lived in the UK for a couple years and I’m familiar with the term “Barman”. It is never used in the US. Here the more gender neutral “Bartender” is the norm. A little thing, but it seemed odd.
For some reason, I never quite felt connected to the characters in the book. I just finished reading it ten minutes ago, and I couldn’t describe anyone in the book. There are quite a few side and background characters in the story, and lots of room for offshoots, so I’m expecting there will be multiple sequels. And as I said at the top, the last line is a total setup for book two.
I’ll end by saying that while I love this author, and the book was an easy and quick read, it left me a little “meh”.
RATING: 
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