Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Dirty Work

SERIES:  Dirty Deeds

AUTHOR:  T.A. Moore

PUBLISHER:  Rogue Firebird Press

LENGTH:  182 pages

RELEASE DATE:  March 4, 2022

BLURB:

Crime Scene Cleaner [kraɪm siːnˈkliːnə] – Cleans up crime scenes…before the cops know there is one.

People always say ‘you can’t go home again’. It turns out that doesn’t count as a guarantee…especially not during a global pandemic.

After the jobs in LA started to dry up, crime scene cleaner Grade Pulaski was forced to pack up and move home. He loves his family, but the last thing he ever wanted was to face the ghosts he’d left back in Sweeny, Kentucky.

Also, the place just sucks.

He certainly isn’t going to stay any longer than necessary. The plan is to save up enough money to move back to LA and give his business a kick-start. The problem is that, as previously mentioned, Sweeny’s a hole and the locals are anything but professional.

Now a body has gone missing, Grade’s reputation is being held hostage, and people keep asking whether his Dad really did run off with 100 grand of meth in the back of Dodge. Plus, even though you shouldn’t sleep with your employers, crime lord Clay Traynor is exactly the sort of bad idea that Grade can’t resist. Tattooed, bad news, and dangerous.

…oh, yeah. Grade’s job is to clean up the crime scene before the cops know someone’s dead. That’s why he needs to sort this out before he gets a bad review on dark net Yelp.

REVIEW:

This story, which is the start of another new series from T.A. Moore, starts off with a bang – that we’ve just missed.   In the bathroom of The Slap, the local bar, the guy is already dead and Grade Pulaski, crime scene “cleaner/fixer” recently relocated home to Sweeny, KY from LA because of the pandemic, comes in to clean it up before anyone (mean the authorities or the guy’s employers) come looking.  Grade does his job and gets paid by Ezra, the owner.  But a funny thing happens on the way to get rid of the body.  Somebody drive into Grade’s van, knocks him out and steals the van and the body.  This is not good.

Clay Traynor, right hand of Ezra’s, finds Grade after putting the screws to the father of the guy who has been accused of the murder.  Grade has to get the body back or he’s going to pay for the screwup with his life.  So Clay and Ezra work on a plan to find the body.  With the technological help, they get on the right track.  But the body isn’t in the van when they find it, so things are unfinished.  Then the fancy hired muscle who work for the dead guy’s employer show up and things kind of go from bad to worse.  Basically they have 24 hours to get the body back to the satisfaction of this group or they are all going down – including Ezra and maybe his kids.

Sizzling just beneath the surface is this attraction between Grade and Clay.  They both know it’s a bad idea.  But that doesn’t stop them.  But when Grade’s family is maybe going to be made to pay for this series of “mistakes”, Grade needs to make it right.  And against his better judgement, Clay doesn’t want to leave the kid hanging.

Nothing is as it seems.  Things go from bad to worse as they always seem to be one step behind whoever is setting them up.  Clay and Grade and some unexpected help manage to keep themselves alive to fight another day.

So this story isn’t for the faint of heart.  There are a few dead bodies, some murders and shall we say “strong” persuasion techniques here.  If you’re squeamish, you have been warned.  Cleaning up after all the gunshot victims in this one – I hope they have an industrial size barrel of bleach 😉  Grade really really does not want to be home – for a number of reasons.  But he doesn’t have a choice due to economics.  He’s staying with his sister, but that’s less than ideal.  Grade is obviously a smart guy, but he hasn’t always made the best choices.  Regardless, he had to get out of Sweeny.  Why in the world he thinks it’s a good idea to get messed up with Clay is anybody’s guess – but they seem to weirdly click.  Clay’s obviously dealing with some things – his former military service, some sort of tie to Ezra that we don’t really know, and this life of less than upstanding citizenry that he’s bent on.  But he does care about Grade for some reason that even he doesn’t understand.  He’s not gonna leave the guy hang out to dry.  While this mystery is wrapped up, it’s clear that Grade is going to have to hang around for a while.  Clay seems OK with that, but I’m interested to see what kind of trouble these two compelling characters get up to next.  There are a lot of unanswered questions about both these guys and this story just scratches the surface.  Recommended if you’re good with some gory crime scenes and some hot smexy times and an interesting mystery.

RATING: 

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