Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: No Good Men
SERIES: Caro Mysteries #1
AUTHOR: Thea McAlistair
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
LENGTH: 225 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 16, 2019
BLURB:
In 1934, almost everyone struggles to pay the rent, and Alex Dawson is no exception. To support his writing habit, he moonlights with his mentor Donnie as a bodyguard for the mayor. It’s dull work, until the night a handsome, golden-eyed stranger catches his eye–and both his boss and his mentor are killed when his back is turned.
Jobless and emotionally adrift, Alex vows to find the murderer before the corrupt police can pin the blame on him. But he soon discovers he’s in over his head. The golden-eyed stranger turns out to be a mob boss’s cousin, and a suspicious stack of money in Donnie’s dresser leads Alex to discover that his mentor and the mayor were involved in something more crooked than fundraising dinners and campaign speeches. As the death count rises amid corruption, mob politics, and anarchist plots, Alex realizes that the murders aren’t political or even business. This is the work of a spree killer, and Alex and his new boyfriend are the only ones who can stop them.
REVIEW:
I love a good classic, hard-boiled mystery, especially when the gruff detectives and down-on-their-luck PI’s end up falling for each other. There’s such a rich, fun atmosphere about the subgenre without it being too glossy or glamorized, and the gritty settings make for intense romances. Though the story here is excellent, there isn’t much sizzle to be had, barely taking things over a simmer right until the end.
In this story, main character Alex Dawson is a struggling writer moonlighting as a bodyguard who ends up embroiled in an ugly massacre at a night club, one that claims his surrogate father as well as the mayor. Though he has cops and reporters breathing down his neck, thinking he knows more than he does, he vows not to leave town until he avenges his mentor’s death. As he searches for answers, he soon meets Sev, the cousin of one of the city’s most dangerous crime bosses, and several other shady characters who definitely aren’t telling the truth.
This setting is everything I want from a 1930s crime novel. Though Alex isn’t the most interesting protagonist, his relationships are unique, and his family consists of those cobbled together by hard times and rough living. He finds solace in a socialist doctor, a precocious little girl with a drunk for a father, a shrewd and ruthless news reporter, and a glamorous crime boss who is much more than she appears. All of these characters contribute to solving the mystery, and I ended up being invested in all of their stories.
I can’t say Alex and Sev have a ton of chemistry, only because we hardly ever see them together. And if they are together, they’re asleep, on the run, or having to pretend they aren’t in a relationship. There’s not a lot of sensual or sexual attraction, and everything beyond a kiss is fade-to-black. This is one of those books that doesn’t even make it clear in the first quarter of the story who the love interest even is, so that says a lot about the romance aspect. There’s room to grow, but so far, I care more about the side characters and minor plots than I do about Alex or his and Sev’s relationship.
Though the story itself kept me interested, the characters just fell flat. I wasn’t expecting this book to be the start of a series, but hopefully, in future books, Alex and Sev are developed much further—and given a lot more to do together. I’d be willing to give them another try!
RATING: 
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