Reviewed by Donna

TITLE: Cause and Effect

SERIES: Casus Fortuitus #3

AUTHOR: Brooke Edwards

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 162 Pages

RELEASE DATE: September 14, 2018

BLURB:

In the aftermath of a psychopath’s obsession-fuelled murder spree through New York, Detective Daniel Callahan feels like he’s been hit by a wrecking ball. It turns out that watching your best friend and your boss fall in love only to nearly lose it all takes a toll on a guy’s emotional stability.
Peter Saracen has an out-of-control crush on the belligerent detective who seems to want nothing more than to toss him into a cell and throw away the key. When the body of an unidentified gang member is pulled from the East River and an old nemesis breaks out of prison, Peter finds himself on a whole new collision course with Daniel.
The line between personal and professional begins to blur. The dangers of the present take aim at the fragile possibility of Daniel and Peter’s happily-ever-after, while ghosts of the past threaten the deepening bond between Daniel’s boss James Carter and Assistant US Attorney, Derek Moore. With everything against them, there might not be any coming back from this.

REVIEW:

Cause and Effect is book three in the Casus Fortuitus series, and needs to be read as such. If you like the sound of this book then you really need to start at the beginning, which is Ms. Edward’s short story, Mens Rea. The first two books of the series (Mens Rea and Law & Disorder) focus on the relationship of James and Derek, while Cause and Effect develops the attraction between Daniel and Peter. However the plot of this series is an over arching one that plays out over the whole series, and rather than changing MCs, the author instead seems to gather more characters as the books continue. The point of view switches between all of these men plus a few secondary characters thrown in for good measure. In most cases I’d probably be complaining about the fact that that we shift between so many characters, but the author definitely made it work with this series. It was kinda quirky and fun, and some of the randomly thrown in scenes and points of view added a bit of levity to an otherwise serious plot.

As to the crime plot, it really is the whole point to this series. While I really enjoyed the relationships between the MCs they were almost secondary to the criminal drama unfolding throughout these books. In my review of the second book, I commented that I felt we never got to know the MCs sufficiently, and that was true, but reading all of these books together solves that problem. Each book feeds into the next and each couple continues to develop through following stories.

Having said that the romances are the focus of these books, I should add that I did still like their inclusion. The author seems to have a way of writing her characters that make them very relatable and likeable. When we first meet Peter he is a bit of a mess after breakup and is acting like a bit of an idiot. He doesn’t have any excitingly “cool” job but instead washes dishes at a pizza shop. While James and Daniel might be hot shot NYPD, they don’t always get things right, and their mistakes have consequences. And Derek, the smooth young attorney, is still suffering PTSD from the action in the last book, and is behaving like any messed up, terrified person would. I appreciated that none of these guys were perfect, or even close to perfect. It made the whole story more plausible.

Luckily I received books #3 and #4 at the same time. I think if I had to wait for the forth one, I’d be thinking some very mean thoughts in the author’s direction.

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