Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Thin Blue 
SERIES: Thin Blue Line #1
AUTHOR: Patricia Logan
NARRATOR: Michael Pauley
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
RELEASE DATE: August 16, 2018
LENGTH: 10 hours, 55 minutes
BLURB:
Detective Pope Dades is a veteran police officer working in the Hollywood division, one of the busiest police precincts in the country. Dealing with drug dealers, hookers, and mentally ill suspects on a daily basis is his stock and trade. He once loved his job with the LAPD but three years ago, he put his trust in the wrong man and he’s been paying the price ever since. Refusing to work with a partner after the first one nearly killed him, Pope is jaded, still hurting, and hanging onto the career he once adored by a thread.
Homeland Security Investigator Felix Jbarra is a fresh-faced young agent with a bright future in the DHS ahead of him. Deeply closeted, Felix hides his sexual orientation from his huge Catholic family which brings him terrible guilt and grief. One night in a back-room nightclub encounter, he connects with a man who inexplicably makes him want to confess everything. Assigned to help shut down an elusive child sex trafficking ring, Felix instinctively knows he’ll need turn to the more experienced detective for help if he and his partner want to crack this case.
In the first book of the brand new Thin Blue Line series, join Felix and Pope in this exciting adventure as their worlds collide on the mean streets and in between the sheets…
REVIEW:
Corruption, betrayal, crooked cops, homophobia, trafficking and enough steam to melt your ears. This book has it all, and it was full speed from word one.
Pope Dades has got trust issues that run as deep as the Mariana Trench. And he has a lot of reasons for those trust issues. Putting his trust in the wrong person nearly got him killed three years back. Since then he’s trusted no one but himself. Working alone, he’s got no one watching his back, so when an arrest goes wrong his job hangs by the thinnest of threads.
Felix Jbarra works for Homeland Security and is hunting a human trafficker. He’s deeply closeted and the only one who knows he’s gay is his partner and friend. A very hot encounter at a bar connects him to Pope which signals the start of a web so tangled it not even the best of spiders can find their way out.
Pope and Felix work well together from the get go. Well after some initial head butting that is. Their relationship is kind of full speed ahead from their first meet. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no insta love – plenty of lust and steam though. Then there’s trust, and it all just follows from there. I like that it’s a work in progress, that by the end of the story there aren’t any huge declarations or happily ever after. There is just a now, and a solid beginning, and I can’t wait to see how it all develops in the future.
Michael Pauley did a great job narrating this book. He nailed the suspense, the action. He lived in the story while narrating and brought the listener into it as well. He made the character and the plot come alive. And boy was it an intense ride these past ten something hours. I love listening to Michael Pauley, it’s always effortless and I never have to wonder who’s speaking. He has a wide range of distinct voices and he’s always able to maintain them throughout.
The plot was fantastic. And by that I don’t mean the quality of it, just that all that was going on, was beyond credible or believable. It was a lot, intricate and over the top at times – I mean the good guys were truly few and far between, and the many, many ambushes and firefights. Still, just like putting on an action movie where things go boom and the heroes always miraculously survive time and again, you aren’t looking for it to be credible, you are looking to be entertained. And Logan delivered that with this book. I was entertained throughout.
Thin Blue Line is a spin-off of sorts from the Death and Destruction series. I haven’t read the original series, and didn’t have any problems following along with this one. On the other hand, there were hints of past events, so while waiting for Order & Anarchy to be released I might just go back and listen to the Death and Destruction series.
Thin Blue was a really good start to a promising new series. it was fast paced, filled with action and it had me at the edge of my seat.
RATING: 
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