Title: Chasing Shadows
Author: Jez Morrow
Genre: Paranormal, Crime
Length: Novel (167pgs)
Publisher: Torquere Press (25th April 2012)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥3 ½Hearts
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: Upon witnessing a sultry, naked young man turn into a wolf after a car crash, Detective John Hamdon thinks he must be pretty messed up. When John’s beautiful hallucination arrives at Chicago police headquarters as a new detective, John knows he’s perfectly screwed. John can’t tell anyone he saw the new man turn into a wolf when John doesn’t believe it himself.
Detective René Bast from New Orleans is sexy, irresistible, and all wrong. John finds it tough to investigate a series of murders when he’s sure he’s riding shotgun with the perp. John knows his new partner has a past, but Bast’s records got washed away by Hurricane Katrina. Even as John digs into Bast’s ties to a Chicago crime lord, Bast won’t stand still to be hunted. It’s clear that John Hamdon is running from his own past. Bast turns the hunt around, even as he’s falling for the man he may need to kill.
Purchase Link: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3565
Review: John’s involved in a crash when a dog runs in front of his car. But, he isn’t sure if he is hallucinating or not, when he briefly sees a hot man under his car. But, when the man turns up at his station, as a new detective, he has suspicions from the start. Bast is John’s suspect when the murders begin, because John knows what he saw and he is determined to take Bast down. Bast knows that John knows and digs into John’s past to find something to hold over him, but neither man can count on their own feelings anymore.
Jez Morrow produces some wonderful shifter stories that draws the imagination out. The beginning of this book is quite bizarre and slightly dark and shows us with actions what is later explained in further detail, so we can get clearly in our mind how it could happen. The legend of the loup-garou was really good and differs from the werewolf stories that we usually get with the loup-garou fighting the evil shadows. I really liked the way that Bast was portrayed, was he good? Or was he bad? We teeter between the two, as we wonder just what side he will fall on.
I will admit that I got thrown a bit when I started chapter six and I thought that I had missed something, but that was the way it was actually written. it just felt like there should have been more warning or at least a hint of what was to come and I can see where Bast had started to soften towards John… but love. It was thrown in from nowhere. I also really wanted to know how John came to fall into the trap and I really did think that as revenge it went too far. I was just really glad that Bast took it into his own hands and evened the score.
There are a couple of twists in this book that are quite good, but there are a couple of loose ends that do get tied up, but as they start to play out you wonder where the hell the storyline is going with it. But, explanations do clear everything up, it just felt a little disjointed. The relationship between Bast and John is more complex than you think, as we find out that John hasn’t been quite himself, but they are cute together when they finally figure it out.
I will recommend this to those who like a slightly darker shifter story, shifters with a difference, a more complex story line with some twists and turns and a couple that aren’t instant mates.