Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: Bad to Be Good
AUTHOR: Andrew Grey
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 10, 2020
BLURB:
Longboat Key, Florida, is about as far from the streets of Detroit as a group of gay former mobsters can get, but threats from within their own organization forced them into witness protection—and a new life.
Richard Marsden is making the best of his second chance, tending bar and learning who he is outside of organized crime… and flirting with the cute single dad, Daniel, who comes in every Wednesday. But much like Richard, Daniel hides dark secrets that could get him killed. When Daniel’s past as a hacker catches up to him, Richard has the skills to help Daniel out, but not without raising some serious questions and risking his own new identity and the friends who went into hiding with him.
Solving problems like Daniel’s is what Richard does best—and what he’s trying to escape. But finding a way to keep Daniel and his son safe without sacrificing the person he’s becoming will take some imagination, and the stakes have never been higher. This time it’s not just lives on the line—it’s his heart….
REVIEW:
Before we were living for us and what we want. Maybe these two have shown us what it feels like to live for someone else.
Bad to Be Gone is an enjoyable opposites attract story involving an ex-mobster and a geeky single dad. Richard and his life-long friends – and fellow former Mafiosos – Terrance and Gerome, have landed on Longboat Key, Florida, in the Witness Protection Program. They spent eighteen years – since the age of fourteen – in the Italian mafia in Detroit, working their way up to running the city’s gay entertainment venues while laundering money. When circumstances forced them to turn on the kingpin, they left their lives as criminals behind.
Now they lead non-descript lives, working low-key jobs with strict orders to live under the radar. That includes avoiding an attachment to others to whom it might be too difficult to keep secrets from and maintain their cover. It begins to occur to Richard and his friends that “witness protection was its own kind of prison.” The appearance of Daniel at the bar Richard tends tests his resolve on that front. They do get involved and Richard falls for both Daniel and his four year old son, Coby.
Their lives here were mostly shades of gray surrounded by a technicolor world, and Daniel had been a bolt of color.
Terrance and Gerome warn Richard away from any relationship, but soon they’re succumbing to the charms of Daniel and Coby, too.
Daniel is approached by an anonymous extorter forcing him to commit a crime on a grand scale, utilizing hacking skills he acquired in college. But he left that part of his life in the past when he graduated. Now his and Coby’s lives are threatened if he doesn’t follow through. Richard wants to help but if he gets involved he risks blowing his cover.
I enjoyed Andrew Gray’s writing style. Sometimes when I read a book I have nothing to quote; I had the opposite problem with Bad to Be Good. Gray has a plethora of passages that convey the essence of his characters and the storyline much more succinctly than I could ever summarize. I felt the pace dragged somewhat in the middle, but overall it’s a solid book with interesting characters, including a darling little boy. Who could predict that a trio of former thugs would be such pushovers to a little kid? As much as I enjoyed all the characters, I would’ve enjoyed more time spent just with Richard and Daniel away from Coby, Terrance, and Gerome. The story wraps up nicely and allows for a series to follow. I happily recommend Andrew Gray’s latest novel.
RATING: 
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