'A Dangerous Thing: Adrien English #2' by Josh LANYON

From the BLURB:

In Josh Lanyon's "A Dangerous Thing", the second in his on-going series of Los Angeles based thrillers, featuring bookseller Adrien English, a holiday trip, following directly on from the 'Gay Slasher Killings' narrated in "Fatal Shadows" proves far less relaxing than English anticipates. But one corpse is not enough and as the body count mounts, so does the excitement.

This is the second book in Josh Lanyon’s ‘Adrien English’ series, which just gets better and better…

In this second installment Adrien escapes LA and his maybe-but-not-really-boyfriend, Detective Jake Riordan, and his yo-yoing affections. Adrien travels eight hours to the ranch he inherited from his deceased grandmother. Adrien has every intention of squeezing in some writing time for his second novel, and to forget about closeted homosexual, Jake.

Before he even gets through the front door, Adrien stumbles across a corpse lying in his driveway. He calls the Podunk town Sheriff’s, but when they retrace Adrien’s steps, the body has vanished.

Further complicating Adrien’s life; he discovers marijuana being grown on his abandoned property, and when he goes snooping he gets clocked on the head and lands in hospital. When he wakes, Jake Riordan is standing sentry and refusing to leave Adrien on his lonesome until they get to the bottom of these strange happenings.

“You’re not a cop, baby. You’re a bookseller. You don’t have a gut instinct. You have a knack for nearly getting yourself killed.”

I batted my lashes. “I didn’t know you cared.”

His eyes held mine briefly. “The hell you didn’t.”

This is a great follow-up to Lanyon’s first novel, ‘Fatal Shadows’. Not least of all because Lanyon has the Adrien/Jake romance cranking up a few notches. This is one of the most complicated romances I have ever read – on the one hand Jake is firmly in the closet and deep in denial. Jake’s obvious disgust with his sexuality is unbelievably sad and complicated, but thoroughly intriguing. Adrien is very aware and sensitive to Jake’s feelings, but he has to bear the brunt of his negativity and face the fact that Jake’s self-hatred probably includes Adrien. Despite this huge emotional obstacle, these two are H-O-T! ‘A Dangerous Thing’ marks Jake and Adrien’s first sexual encounter, and it absolutely sizzles. Lanyon isn’t writing the “Adrien English” series to be M/M erotica, but he definitely knows his way around a sex scene;

“Shhh. Turn off for a few seconds, Adrien.”

“A few seconds? Is that all it’s - -"I caught my breath as his finger moved knowledgably, unerringly.

“There’s the off button,” he murmured.

I pushed back hard on his hand. Not like I’d never felt this before, and yet somehow I’d never felt it quite so intensely.

In this second book I appreciate the romance more than the mystery. The ‘whodunnit’ is a little bit too layered with too many players and urban legends floating around. It’s still intriguing and keeps the pace moving, but I found myself more invested in the murder-mystery in ‘Fatal Shadows’ because those deaths were closer to Adrien’s heart.

I loved this book as much as the first, and I really look forward to reading the last three installments.

4/5