The Next by Rafe Haze

6180kdYM50L._SL1000_Title: The Next

Series: N/A

Author: Rafe Haze

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Length: Novel ( 257 Pages)

Publisher: Wilde City Press (April 26, 2014)

Heat Level: Moderate

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥5Heaerts

Blurb: He never thought he’d become one of the agoraphobic sludges of New York City—trapped with one view of a courtyard and a head full of wrenching memories. Dumped, disconnected, and depressed, he surrenders to spying on the neighbors as his only entertainment.

Until one day, without warning, the lascivious and suspicious behavior of the closeted lawyer in the huge apartment across the courtyard leads him to a spine-tingling conclusion… his neighbor is a murderer.

Perhaps collaborating with the beautiful and fierce Detective Marzoli to catch the killer can finally breathe life back into a man suffocated by the stranglehold of a tragic past. Unless the killer across the way decides to make him… The Next.

Product Link: http://www.wildecity.com/books/gay-mainstream/the-next/#.U3n_WnaA-So

Reviewer: GiGi

Review: I really enjoy a good murder mystery, hot cops, and twisted, damaged characters, so I knew this book would grab my attention right away, and it didn’t disappoint!

The whole story is rather reminiscent of a good Alfred Hitchcock episode, if good ol’ Al had included some hot man on man action that is. The depressed and agoraphobic songwriter, does not so much become clear, as gets laid out for us one depressing, frustrating, detail at a time. At first I don’t’ want to see that he is so damaged, and I want to shake him out of his stupor. Thank god for Detective Marzoli, who seems to have knocked on his door at just the right time, the bottom of this neurotic songwriter’s spiral.

Marzoli seems to see where the MC is at, The Next may very well be suicide, and he’s there not only to solve a murder, but also to stop the waste of humanity. The sexual sparks are there, though the MC has had a recent breakup with his girlfriend, I had the feeling that men were not foreign to him.

Add to the twists of mental breakdown, agoraphobia, the fact that the MC has given up on socializing, cleaning his house, earning money to pay his bills, and last but not least, VERY disturbing flashbacks to his youth after receiving a call about the death of his brother. Though I’m starting to wonder if the brother was real, or if the brother is him, that’s a concept for a much longer, more rambling review…

The MC (I’ll keep calling him that because I can’t seem to remember a name, (another reason I think he’s Paul) is interrogated by Marzoli about his upstairs neighbor, only to come to the conclusion that he’s been killed, not gone missing. As Marzoli challenges MC to open his windows, and himself, to life around him, he links the neighbor’s behavior to the missing/murdered twink upstairs.

The mystery deepens, and so does Marzoli’s relationship, friendly, sexual, and otherwise, as the plot thickens. We see MC gaining strength, as Marzoli exposed his own weaknesses.

So many little twists, so many mysteries among neighbors, so many layers. That’s what I like in a good book, layers, suggestion, the planting of an idea, to let it grow and fester in my mind until I can‘t help but demand the answers. I read until I completed this story, losing hours of sleep, and pieces of my mind to plotting and puzzling.

The Next is a great mystery, thriller, and sexual twister. I highly recommend to those who love more than romance.

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