River of Need

Title: River of Need
Author: Shayla Kersten
Publisher: ellora’s cave
Genre: Contemporary M/M, murder mystery
Length: novella (25.5K words)
Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Review Summary: Neither the murder investigation nor the romance worked for me.

THE BLURB

Two years after their breakup, Detective Kyle Shelton didn’t expect to see his lying, cheating, closeted ex. Especially not behind bars for prostitution. Bailing him out is one of the stupidest things Kyle has done in a while. Although letting his ex back in his bed probably ranks higher on the dumbass scale.

Dustin Eldridge’s lies about his sexual preferences have left him with nothing. Literally. He’s lost his home, his family, his job and, worse, he’s lost Kyle. On the streets, with no one to turn to, he’s resorted to selling his body to survive. Then Kyle—of all people—comes to his rescue. Dustin can’t fix the past but maybe there’s hope for a future.

Unless Kyle really believes Dustin added serial killer to his resume, along with hooker.

THE REVIEW

When Detective Kyle Shelton was told that his ex Dustin had been arrested for prostitution he didn’t know what to think. From the arrest report it appeared that he was living on the streets, so apparently he was no longer with his wife who had caught them together, a wife he had forgotten to mention to Kyle who had hoped never to see Dustin Eldridge again after the way he had lied and betrayed him 2 years ago. However, even though he didn’t want anything to do with Dustin any more he couldn’t let him rot in jail, although that was probably what he deserved.

Seeing Dustin again was a shock to Kyle because of his changed appearance. No longer the good looking urbane charmer, at thirty five he looked much older, thinner and grayer and his clothes had definitely seen better days. Kyle bailed Dustin out and because he had no address he took him home to clean him up. Since Kyle was still in love with Dustin it didn’t take much for them to have sex that night despite Dustin’s lifestyle and Kyle’s trust issues; Dustin managed to ingratiate himself and make Kyle believe that he was sincere about wanting to do better. But things took a nasty turn the next morning when Detective Tony Costa, Kyle’s friend and colleague, showed up at the house and told them that Dustin was the prime suspect in an ongoing serial murder investigation and it looked like he could be arrested at any time, unless they came up with another credible suspect. Could Dustin’s attempt to make it up to Kyle for his past sins be jeopardized by this new turn of events?

I had several issues with this story. The first one was that Kyle had not seen Dustin in 2 years yet they had sex right after he had a shower and a meal. I guess the fact that Dustin told him he was “clean” gave Kyle the confidence that a man who had lied to him throughout their relationship was telling the truth this time. Second, Dustin was the prime suspect in a serial murder investigation because, according to the police report, he was the last person on the scene for two of the murders – one of the victims was his last blow job the same night he was arrested for soliciting, and the other victim was his sleazy landlord even though he claimed he was living on the street. However Kyle believed in him implicitly despite his latest lie and the evidence.

The story is told from both Kyle’s and Dustin’s third person POV so I had a fairly good insight into their thoughts about the past and how it affected them and why Dustin did what he did. Unfortunately I never really bought Dustin’s story about why he ended up on the streets.  He had been in the workforce for more than a decade, and despite the economy and being blackballed by his former father-in-law he could have either contacted his friends or some of his former business associates for leads, or found a minimum wage job to pay for his immediate needs, but I guess that solution never occurred to him therefore hooking was his best option to make a living.  In addition, it seemed to me that the author used sex to resolve all the issues in Kyle’s and Dustin’s relationship because whenever they attempted to discuss their problems, immediately they had the hottest sex and forgot about the problems. They also fed on each other’s kinks and their need for dominance/submission and it was difficult at times to determine who was dominating whom in the relationship, but Kyle seemed to get off on Dustin’s sexual misadventures, including his gang rape.

IMO the characterizations for both protagonists needed a bit of work – Kyle was a tough police officer who had been betrayed by Dustin in the worst way but immediately upon hearing that he was in trouble he rescued him and took him home. Even though he was still in love with Dustin I thought it might take him a few days before jumping into bed with him in view of his lifestyle as a street hooker. As for Dustin, I could understand his depression about losing his luxurious lifestyle, but at his age he could have looked harder for a job. The entire story was on fast forward from start to finish and I think that both the relationship and the murder investigation suffered. Also, part of the story was off page so I missed some of the investigation as well as Dustin’s life before he hooked up again with Kyle. In the end the murders and the relationship issues were resolved with amazing ease and speed and our heroes lived happily ever after.

I will be reviewing Hidden Force in a couple of weeks, the story of Tony Costa and his boyfriend Ryan Nilsson. River of Need was actually released after HF and features the same characters but you could read both books as standalones.

River of Need would be of interest to fans of Shayla Kersten.

River of Need contains one brief account of gang rape, so be warned.