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A review by cspoe
Paternity Case by Gregory Ashe
5.0
I tend to think it's pretty easy to judge the direction of a long, ongoing series by book three. Has the story surpassed each one before it? Is the author getting savvier, smarter, honing their craft down to the last, most minute detail? In the case of Hazard and Somerset's third title, the answer is a resounding, yes! Ashe worked every angle of this mystery with intelligence and accuracy, threw enough curve balls my way that I doubted my gut and then doubted the doubt about my gut, and interwove the murder and mystery so thoroughly with the push-and-pull of our two main detectives that you don't know where one moment of chaos begins and another ends.
In short, Paternity Case was absolutely excellent.
The story begins with a double date, Hazard and his boyfriend, Nico, out with Somers and his estranged wife, Cora. It's about as cringe-worthy as you can imagine, cut short only by a call to duty that brings Hazard and Somers to Somers' parents house where a naked, drugged-up Santa has crashed a Christmas party and is waving a gun around. It gets worse when Santa somehow escapes Somers' cuffs and ends up shooting his father and the teenage daughter of Somers' old high school football coach, Bing. It manages to get worse still, when Santa, the only real lead Hazard and Somers have as to what in the hell is going on, is shot and killed for resisting arrest. Or at least, that was the story.
The mystery of this book was complicated and abstract. Suspects dragged us deeper into Hazard's heartbreaking past, as well as inflated previously established dangers and personalities from Book 2, boxing the reader in with a sense of impending doom, no matter which direction they fled. And the conclusion of Paternity Case was incredibly intense, as Ashe refuses to shy away from difficult subject matter in his stories, and very successfully paints villains as nothing but villains. The meat of the book focused on Hazard, but God, the way that Ashe concludes the stories with Somers making incredible sacrifices on behalf of his partner... it's a great display of growth for the character in regards to self-esteem and bravery, and also a wonderful example of humans doing stupid and dangerous things for the people they love. And Somers loves Hazard. Without a shred of doubt. And the fact that he loves his partner, I can only imagine, will endanger them in the future.
The series is amazing. It deserves all the praise and attention its received. Ashe's narrative is brutal and beautiful poetry. His characters are profoundly flawed and deeply relatable. The mysteries are intense and exciting. I've slowed down my reading, despite my anxiousness to get to the second season, because I have been absolutely relishing every word, every turn of phrase, every paragraph that tears me apart and stitches me together again like Frankenstein's monster. Hazard and Somerset have carved a place into the history of gay mystery books.
In short, Paternity Case was absolutely excellent.
The story begins with a double date, Hazard and his boyfriend, Nico, out with Somers and his estranged wife, Cora. It's about as cringe-worthy as you can imagine, cut short only by a call to duty that brings Hazard and Somers to Somers' parents house where a naked, drugged-up Santa has crashed a Christmas party and is waving a gun around. It gets worse when Santa somehow escapes Somers' cuffs and ends up shooting his father and the teenage daughter of Somers' old high school football coach, Bing. It manages to get worse still, when Santa, the only real lead Hazard and Somers have as to what in the hell is going on, is shot and killed for resisting arrest. Or at least, that was the story.
The mystery of this book was complicated and abstract. Suspects dragged us deeper into Hazard's heartbreaking past, as well as inflated previously established dangers and personalities from Book 2, boxing the reader in with a sense of impending doom, no matter which direction they fled. And the conclusion of Paternity Case was incredibly intense, as Ashe refuses to shy away from difficult subject matter in his stories, and very successfully paints villains as nothing but villains. The meat of the book focused on Hazard, but God, the way that Ashe concludes the stories with Somers making incredible sacrifices on behalf of his partner... it's a great display of growth for the character in regards to self-esteem and bravery, and also a wonderful example of humans doing stupid and dangerous things for the people they love. And Somers loves Hazard. Without a shred of doubt. And the fact that he loves his partner, I can only imagine, will endanger them in the future.
The series is amazing. It deserves all the praise and attention its received. Ashe's narrative is brutal and beautiful poetry. His characters are profoundly flawed and deeply relatable. The mysteries are intense and exciting. I've slowed down my reading, despite my anxiousness to get to the second season, because I have been absolutely relishing every word, every turn of phrase, every paragraph that tears me apart and stitches me together again like Frankenstein's monster. Hazard and Somerset have carved a place into the history of gay mystery books.