Reviewed by Jay V.

TITLE: Armed & Dangerous

SERIES: Cut & Run #5

AUTHOR: Abigail Roux

PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing

LENGTH: 339 Pages

RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2024, Re-Release

BLURB:

they don’t take their shot, they may miss out on each other.

When Special Agent Zane Garrett is tapped as backup for an undercover operation in Chicago, the last person he’s expecting to see is Ty Grady. Ty—Zane’s partner, in every sense of the word—had vanished from Zane’s bed, leaving nothing but a note. He’d been radio silent ever since.

Before they can work out what’s going on between them, they have to collect a particularly challenging mark. Julian Cross is a retired hit man and CIA operative with a wide array of specialized skills, and he’s currently using all of them to achieve a singular goal: get away from Ty and Zane. Luckily, the two agents have an ace in the hole. Julian will go quietly as long as his boyfriend, the doe-eyed Cameron Jacobs, is brought along for protection.

Julian retired to love Cameron in the open, and watching the two of them is putting thoughts in Ty’s head. He’s tired of keeping his partnership with Zane a secret. As the four of them are chased across the country by a cadre of mysterious killers, their friends and family are pulled into the crosshairs as well. Ty and Zane will have to decide where their priorities lie, before it’s too late.

*This is a limited re-release of the original series, without changes. Some aspects of the story are now dated, and an updated version will be published at a later date.*

REVIEW:

The continuation of the long favored series is now available again.

The previous novel left off on a cliff-hanger and I know at the time they were released, we were all dying to get this next book.  What happened with Ty? Why was he missing? Fortunately, this is resolved quickly & Ty and Zane are thrown back together. Undercover. Again.

But now they’re finally facing their relationship head on, opening up to each other more and though I don’t always consider them sappy, they go there for a little, and it helps to solidify them as a couple. There’s a lot of symbolism that goes on tying back to previous books. And it’s really been something of a slow burn to get them to admit they’re really together. They’ve been having lots of sex through the books but they just couldn’t quite get the emotional part in check.  But now they’re united and heading into another case.

And we get the introduction of several great characters who show up in other books.  And they’re some of my faves, so it was thrilling to re-read their introductions.  The books continue with high jinks, distrust, twists, and bickering.  Which is glorious.

What I’ve always loved about this series as it’s balance between story & couple. Not too much of either and they don’t seem to get dragged down by topics but flow in a great manner. This book has a sightly different tone that continues on the rest of the series. Some of it was maturing of Roux’s writing and some of it was the books of it’s time (12+ years ago!). And this style is what resonates with me more & gives me the nostalgia from the series. This is the last of the re-releases as Riptide had released the later books a few years back. I’ll not be reviewing the rest of the novels but I’ll surely pick them up and do a re-read. This is a series that is reflected on fondly and rightly deserves it’s place among the better books in m/m.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

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