Hi guys, we have Lane Swift stopping by today with her brand new release The Losing Game, we have a great excerpt and my review so check out the post and enjoy! <3 ~Pixie~
The Losing Game
Lane Swift
Winchester Crown Court, October 2035: Richard Shaw leaves, a free man.
Grief-stricken and angry, Lucas Green is hell-bent on revenge against Richard Shaw, who killed his sister. Lucas has heard of a man who can help—the handsome and urbane owner of a boutique sex shop, with a head for planning crimes. But Dante Okoro has a past he’s desperate to keep buried. Though Lucas piques his interest in more ways than one, Dante turns him away. Still, he wonders if he made the right decision….
An unexpected death brings Dante and Lucas together once more. This time they can’t ignore the chemistry between them. But courting a lover with lies is a dangerous game. Dante has been spying on Lucas, convinced he has plans to kill Shaw. Lucas has been spying on Shaw, waiting for the right moment to strike. If Dante admits his suspicions to Lucas, he’ll surely lose him. If he doesn’t, Lucas might do something reckless—and end up losing everything.
Excerpt
Prologue
Roseport Island, south coast of England
9th November, 2035
ON DANTE’S monitor screen, Kit’s luminescent silhouette jumped from the two-meter boundary wall and moved catlike across black lawns.
Dante zoomed in on her thermal image. “Can you hear me, Kit?”
She tapped her head twice.
Beside Dante, his old friend Chief Superintendent Thierry Balon put down his coffee and moved his chair closer to the desk, so that he could get a better view of the screen.
When she reached the front of the house, beyond his line of sight, Dante switched cameras. In that split second, Kit had scaled the drainpipe, level with the height of the upstairs windows. Night vision glasses allowed her to move confidently in the darkness. A gravity-defying leap later, she stood on the sill, her back pressed against the window. Another stretch, another jump, and she landed on the tiled roof covering the front porch, successfully avoiding any pressure sensors that might lie beneath the drive.
Crouched upon the roof, she removed the electromagnetic scanner from her pocket. The alarm’s control panel was housed in a heat-insulated box to prevent locating it using thermal imaging.
Holding the scanner to the wall, she said, “My guess is that the control panel is on the wall by the front door. I’m picking up a signal located three meters from my current position.”
Earlier surveillance had revealed a vivid blue-and-white box under the eaves, above Kit’s head. The property was protected by a Fortune 3000 alarm system. Dante turned his attention to his laptop. The control panel communicated with the security company via a dedicated cellular channel. A signal jammer could temporarily block the radio signals from the sensors to the control box, and from the control box to the security company—but only if the “noise” created by the jammer was close enough. Five meters would do it. Three was a gift.
Lois, whom he’d always considered the cautious one of his two daughters, had successfully finagled an unsuspecting customer service representative out of Fortune’s operating frequencies. Dante reminded Kit, “Set the jammer to cycle across eight-sixty to eight-seventy megahertz.”
“As soon as I’m in place.”
After that she’d have fifteen minutes before the system detected the fault and triggered the alarm. The security company would have to verify the problem, which gave Kit another twenty-five minutes until the police arrived.
She didn’t waste a moment. In one swift, smooth motion, she swung under the eaves of the porch. Wood frames supported the sides. She balanced, one foot on a side beam, one on the front doorknob, as she stuck the jammer to the wall. Using a glass cutter, she scored into one of the narrow panes of glass to the side of the front door and paused.
“Ready to switch visual to my contact lenses?”
“Whenever you are.”
“Switching now and starting the timer.”
The camera feed on Kit’s contact lenses streamed directly to Dante’s computer. Through Kit’s eyes, he watched as she suction-cupped the first pane of glass free. She lowered it carefully to the floor and repeated the process on the second inner pane.
“Going in.”
Kit was twenty-three but weighed forty-five kilos and stood a few centimeters over a meter and a half (about the size of the average twelve-year old girl). She squeezed through the tiny window frame and into the wide hallway.
The alarm stayed blissfully silent.
“Seven minutes gone, Kitty-Kat.”
“I know, Dad.”
Kit searched upstairs, then down, and found the safe in the formal living room, mounted inside the wall, behind what appeared to be a glass-encased bioethanol fire.
“It’s a Royal,” she said triumphantly. “Digital fingerprint.”
A week before, Lois had lifted the owner’s complete, fresh print from the front door, disguised as a boy delivering leaflets. The print was then transferred to a ballistic gelatin mold. Kit used it to open the safe.
Thierry made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat but said nothing.
Kit began to speak, but the alarm cut in over her voice. A few seconds later, an instant message lit up Dante’s screen:20k in cash and handfuls of jewelry.
Most people had no idea that with a proper plan, burglary was depressingly easy. Technology be damned—nothing had changed since the beginning of the century, when Dante was a boy and the electronic age had been similarly young.
Dante swiveled in his chair to face Thierry. “I won.”
About Lane
Lane Swift is a fiction writer, mainly of contemporary romance, sometimes featuring a mild dash of paranormal.
She lives by the sea in Hampshire, England, with her husband, two children and two guinea pigs, and can often be found at her beach hut, imbibing coffee and dreaming up happy-ever-afters for her heroes and heroines.
Over the years, she’s worked as a waitress, a lab technician, a science teacher and a telecommunications consultant. She’s also played women’s rugby, climbed one mountain and run one marathon, but has never managed to learn how to whistle.
Review
Title: The Losing Game
Series: The Crimesmith 01
Author: Lane Swift
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Future (2035), Psychological Thriller
Length: Novel (230pgs)
ISBN: 978-1-63477-599-1
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (8th August 2016)
Heat Level: Low – Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 3 Hearts
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: Winchester Crown Court, October 2035: Richard Shaw leaves, a free man.
Grief-stricken and angry, Lucas Green is hell-bent on revenge against Richard Shaw, who killed his sister. Lucas has heard of a man who can help—the handsome and urbane owner of a boutique sex shop with a head for planning crimes. But Dante Okoro has a past he’s desperate to keep buried. Though Lucas piques his interest in more ways than one, Dante turns him away. Still, he wonders if he made the right decision….
An unexpected death brings Dante and Lucas together once more. This time they can’t ignore the chemistry between them. But courting a lover with lies is a dangerous game. Dante has been spying on Lucas, convinced he has plans to kill Shaw. Lucas has been spying on Shaw, waiting for the right moment to strike. If Dante admits his suspicions to Lucas, he’ll surely lose him. If he doesn’t, Lucas might do something reckless—and end up losing everything.
Purchase Link: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/the-losing-game-by-lane-swift-7344-b
Review: Lucas is seeking revenge after justice failed, the man who caused his sister’s death walked away with a pathetic sentence from the courts and now Lucas wants him dead. When a friend gives Lucas the name of a man who might be able to help him Lucas seeks him out, and Dante turns him away. Dante can’t understand why his old friend Avery sent Lucas to see him; he learns quickly that Avery sent Lucas for another reason, one that Lucas missed.
As Lucas plans his next move, Dante watches over him to make sure he doesn’t do something to ruin his life. The loss of a friend brings the men face to face again and this time they act on their desire for each other, but with Lucas still acting shifty and Dante watching Lucas’ every move will honesty clear a way or will it drive a wedge between the two men?
Okay this story isn’t really quite a mystery or a thriller, it doesn’t really have BDSM except more on a peripheral view and if it wasn’t set in the future I’d have said it was contemporary with a dash of suspense. There’s a lot of pain and grief as Lucas tries to make sense of the death of his sister. We also get some despondency from Dante as he faces his two girls embracing adulthood and wanting to spread their wings.
The relationship between Lucas and Dante was okay but nothing to write home about, other than a brief flash of attraction between Lucas and Dante I couldn’t feel the connection between the two men, it seemed to just pop and fizz occasionally but I think that the other emotions always seemed to drag it down.
The revenge seeking was thought out really well, Lucas’ planning shows how serious he is and Dante’s watchful eye means that we know that whatever happens Lucas has a guardian angel watching out for him. I liked the back story of both men, and how they come together to kind of heal each other. But I was expecting more, from the tone of the story I was expecting for Lucas to come out victorious and being able to visit his sisters grave and telling her justice had been found… what I didn’t expect was for it to be a hollow victory or to fizzle quite like it did.
This story had huge potential, all the elements were there and there are some great characters, but, it just missed its mark for me. I think this is the first book in a series and I must admit that although this story missed its mark for me there was something in the last chapter that has me hoping that there will be another story.
I’d recommend this to those who love a dash of mystery, a touch of suspense, interesting characters, a good storyline and an element of ‘something more to come’.
I added this to the tbr list. It looks really, really good!!