Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: The Muscle
SERIES: The Long Con Adventures #2
AUTHOR: Amy Lane
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 292 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 27, 2021
BLURB:
A true protector will guard your heart before his own.
Hunter Rutledge saw one too many people die in his life as mercenary muscle to go back to the job, so he was conveniently at loose ends when Josh Salinger offered him a place in his altruistic den of thieves.
Hunter is almost content having found a home with a group of people who want justice badly enough to steal it. If only one of them didn’t keep stealing his attention from the task at hand….
Superlative dancer and transcendent thief Dylan “Grace” Li lives in the moment. But when mobsters blackmail the people who gave him dance—and the means to save his own soul—Grace turns to Josh for help.
Unfortunately, working with Josh’s crew means working with Hunter Rutledge, and for Grace, that’s more dangerous than any heist.
Grace’s childhood left him thinking he was too difficult to love—so he’s better off not risking his love on anyone else. Avoiding commitment keeps him safe. But somehow Hunter’s solid, grounding presence makes him feel safer. Can Grace trust that letting down his guard to a former mercenary doesn’t mean he’ll get shot in the heart?
REVIEW:
“We’re good at solving problems,” Danny said mildly, and Hunter snorted to himself. “We sort of host a think tank for special friends if they need a little bit of help.” Actually, they were a bunch of con men, mercenaries, and thieves. But that didn’t mean they weren’t nice people.
In The Muscle, Felix, Danny, and Josh’s crew – an “altruistic den of thieves” – is back together for a new caper two months after the conclusion of The Mastermind. This is an exciting novel, both for its terrific adventure and the romantic love story. Hunter and Grace are front and center as the latest caper plays out.
After years in the military and working as a mercenary, Hunter loses his lover in a horrific, on the job explosion. He immediately leaves that work and struggles to find himself. Nearly a year later he realizes, while taking some classes, that he had skills he could use for good. He met Josh one night when he was preventing a young woman from being attacked, and soon after, joined Josh’s band of brothers. For the first time in his life, he has true friends, but he still doesn’t trust easily.
Grace (Dylan Li) is a twenty-one-year-old ballet dancer at Artur Mikkelnokov’s Conservatory in Chicago. He went a bit off the rails as a teenager and Artur is one of the people who helped save his life. The others were his childhood best friend, Josh, and Josh’s parents, Julia and Felix, and his Uncle Danny. Grace’s parents were mostly absent from his life so Josh’s took him into their family and home and provided him with the love and nurturing he so severely lacked. Although he’s now a beautiful and successful dancer, his insecurities are vast and he needs constant attention and validation. He’s afraid to let anyone close because he fears being shunned and let down as his parents did. Grace is sometimes portrayed as a flighty dingbat who lives inside his own head, and other times – particularly when he’s thieving – as a brilliant, incomparable genius. It gave me whiplash. His care and feeding requirements are high, but Hunter is up for the job.
“Dylan Li couldn’t manage the requirements of being an adult human if someone gave him two roadmaps and let him steal another one.”
Hunter grounds Grace. He sees Grace and what Grace needs fits Hunter’s desires perfectly. Hunter is driven to be a protector, a caretaker, and it seems he’s the only one able to do that for Grace in a romantic capacity.
In the case this time around, the Russian Mafia is involved in corporate espionage on a grand scale and they’ve ensnared Artur to unwittingly make deliveries of the stolen information. The crew needs to track one of the deliveries, steal the package, determine how it’s being used and who’s involved, and then return it without being detected. The lives of Artur, his granddaughter, and Grace, as well as the future of the conservatory, are endangered. Each member of the crew brings their individual talent to their role, be it in the procurement of information, coms and surveillance, security, distraction, Grace’s supreme thievery, and in Hunter’s case, as The Muscle. In this edition, everyone in the protective chosen family puts their energy and love into keeping Grace feeling needed and wanted.
The Muscle offers so much more than Grace and Hunter’s love story. Once again, it’s this dynamic family of con men (and women) who drive the story. Undeniably, the best part of this series is the colorful cast of characters. I can’t overemphasize the importance of every player. Throughout the book, more and more tidbits of backstory and the motive of each person are revealed. It’s like unwrapping gifts, one at a time, with each adding to the richness of the whole series, not just a single book. I value the deep characterization. We might learn something about Chuck in this book, for example, that won’t become relevant until a future book, but in its own way, it impacts the plot, the complex group dynamics, the machinations and more of the current caper du jour.
I loved Hunter, and while Grace is a fascinating and sympathetic character, it was more difficult for me to attach to him emotionally. They work well as a convincing couple, however. I wish the actual con lasted longer; while there was lots of buildup and preparation, the heist itself only occupied about twenty pages. It was so entertaining that I wanted more. This book didn’t wow me as much as its predecessor, but I still highly recommend it, and it’s a must if you’ve already read Felix and Danny’s story.
RATING: 
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