REVIEWED by Anna Lynn
TITLE: Fire and Obsidian
AUTHOR: Andrew Grey
SERIES: Carlisle Deputies #4
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2019
BLURB:
Can a couple be more opposite than a thief and a cop? Or do they have more in common than they think?
Mattias Dumont stole to survive. He was damned good at it. But there’s no such thing as a victimless crime, and when he saw how his theft hurt people, he resolved to change. Now he works as a consultant, and while helping to investigate a rash of burglaries, he crosses paths with James.
Police Officer James Levinson doesn’t trust thieves, and that includes Mattias. James’s father stole to support himself, and James knows firsthand how that can destroy lives—it inspired him to go into law enforcement. Mattias is no different, from what he can tell… at first.
As they work together, Mattias and James realize there’s something deeper between them than just the physical attraction neither can deny. Given time, they might even grow to trust each other—unless the case they’re working on dredges up pasts both would rather forget.
REVIEW:
I have my favorite tropes to read when I started reading MM Romances, and some of these are police partners, military teammates, protector/protectee, bad boy/good boy, to name a few. I have only read one that involved a thief and a police detective and I thought the dynamics were quite interesting, so I was looking forward to this particular story.
A thief and a cop! Pretty classic set-up right? But this story has some interesting twists in that the thief is not a thief anymore but now a consultant to the different police forces around the country. The police detective is the son of a thief and his father is still active! Having changed his livelihood, the thief is now a consultant to police departments and insurance companies trying to solve theft happening in different cities around the country. His past life is now helping him forge his new life!
Having had the past experience of what it was to have a father for a thief, James is wary of having Mattias, a former thief as a police consultant, especially one assigned to be his team’s consultant in order to solve numerous crimes in the county involving several robberies. Due to personal experience, trust becomes a big issue between James and Mattias. But working together allows the two to learn about each other and sometimes first impressions can be wrong. Realizing that Mattias indeed has changed is not easy to accept because of what James experienced with his father, but both MCs are really trying to dispel all the prejudiced opinions that they may have had regarding each other.
What starts as awkward becomes comfort and friendship, and then more. But things sometimes become worse before they become better. A blossoming relationship amidst solving crimes can have disastrous results, especially when it involves family. Mr. Grey was able to present the complexities of the relationship between James and Mattias, and how they are trying to overcome prejudices and unjustified expectations. The plot is pretty straightforward, but it could have done with a little more excitement. The robberies in this story may be small when you look at it from a general viewpoint but the impact of these actions are quite devastating to the people being robbed. Mr. Grey was able to show that in great detail through the eyes of the two MCs. Overall, it is a good story, with minimum angst!
RATING: 
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