Dirty Kiss

WOW!!! I freakin' loved this book. It's happy combination of some of my favorite things: the hard boiled detective novel a la [a:Raymond Chandler 1377 Raymond Chandler https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg] or [a:Dashiell Hammett 16927 Dashiell Hammett https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1287255332p2/16927.jpg]. An un-easy love, M/M and to gild this lily the audio is done by [a:Greg Tremblay 8108759 Greg Tremblay https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1484561919p2/8108759.jpg] who can read me and Ikea assembly booklet and make me happy. Like many of these detective novels the case is almost incidental and it's resolution an afterthought. Instead we are granted entree into the world of our PI, in this case Cole McGinnis an Irish/Japanese former police officer (aren't they all) who after events that I'm sure will be more amply fleshed out in future books, has left the department with a nice bundle of cash & some enemies and has hung his shingle as a PI. Cole feels like a fully fleshed person from the get go with an office manager/surrogate mother in the person of Claudia, an older brother Mike who loves him but needs to work on accepting Cole as an out and proud gay man and the wonderful Scarlett, a trans Pilipino woman who is a performer and mother hen to Jae-Min, Cole's reluctant love interest, because what's a good PI story without a hard to pin down lover. Did I say I loved this book? Yes. I did. I do. I love Cole's voice, his sly and self deprecating humor but also how he can be vulnerable in front of Jae and basically beg him to love him back without appearing weak or clingy.I'll be inhaling the rest of this series ASAP but I can't break my addiction to [a:Greg Tremblay 8108759 Greg Tremblay https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1484561919p2/8108759.jpg] so it'll have to be at the audio pace which is always slower but in this case also delicious.