Witness Protection

Title: Witness Protection
Author: Derek Adams
Cover Artist: Trace Edward Zaber
Publisher: Amber Allure
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Genre: Contemporary/Suspense/Action/Thriller
Length: Extended Amber Kiss/15000 words
Rating: 1 star out of 5

A Guest Review by Zac D

Review Summary: A promising blurb and a technically well written book that quickly descends into something thoroughly strange and, ultimately, distasteful. Disappointing.

Blurb

Ex-con Tony Bradshaw drops into a convenience store on his way home after work, looking for a loaf of bread. What he finds instead is trouble. Overnight, he becomes the star witness in the murder trial of a major mob enforcer. Death threats quickly follow, and Tony’s life is completely disrupted.

Tony is hustled off to a secluded cabin in the woods with bodyguard Alec Dubinski, a handsome young detective who at first appears to be a complete homophobe. Relations between them start off poorly and soon hit rock bottom during a drunken stupor. But after Alec apologizes for his unacceptable behavior, the sexual chemistry between the men can no longer be ignored. A night of unbridled passion leads to a declaration of their growing affection for one another.

Their idyll in the woods is brought to a halt, however, when their hideout is brutally attacked by mafia henchmen. What sacrifice is Tony willing to make as he attempts to save the man he has come to love?

Review

I approached this book with eager eyes. Like most people, I love me an action packed, testosterone laden cop drama. The blurb is excellent, and sets the tone for what promises to be a good read.

I’ll start with the positives. The technical quality of the writing here is very good. The grammar is excellent, and the sentences well-constructed, resulting in a good flow to the reader and no eyebrow twitching from editing Nazis like me.

Unfortunately, the book comes off the rails somewhat after that. The story is narrated from Tony’s POV, a character who is pretty insipid from the beginning. His backstory–which, incidentally, holds all the things that usually pull at my heart strings–is recited in a huge info dump in the first chapter.
Most of the book centers around the two MC’s being holed up at a safe house in the woods. For the first few chapters, Tony and his surly FBI babysitter skirt around each other in a fairly boring fashion. There is no dialogue or remarkable interaction. Tony cooks, reads and sleeps.

Fair enough. After all, what else is he supposed to do in the middle of nowhere? Especially when his companion refuses to talk to him in a rather clumsily narrated case of nasty homophobia.
All this is fine. It’s not great, but I could live with it while I waited for the action to heat up.

Unfortunately, said heating up came in the form of a blow job of dubious consent. Tony is asleep in bed when his companion, Detective Dubinski, drunkenly wakes him up and forces his penis into his mouth. Then, rather than fighting him off, Tony decides to roll up his sleeves and give his attacker the benefit of his ample oral sex experience, and give him the blow job of his life.

I could not get past this. It horrified me. The tone in which it was written was flippant and distasteful, and made me really rather angry. There is nothing glib about sexual assault. There is nothing entertaining about making light of it.

I struggled with the book after that, especially when Detective Dubinski next appeared in the story as a meek, virginal little lamb, Tony just accepted him and they became best of friends. It was horrible to read, and I didn’t enjoy it at all. It made me lose respect for Tony, and completely undermined him as a character. A shame, as up until that point his character was the glue holding the book together.

The rest of the book is slightly predictable. The bad guys come in the end, and Detective Dubinski saves the day, of course being wounded in the process. Oddly, I quite liked the extremely unethical, unhygienic blood transfusion that came in the aftermath. It’s bizarre, and perhaps a little uncalled for, but I needed it to balm the horrified rash I’d developed from the rest of the book. It’s a teeny, tiny glimpse of a wider imagination in a book that is otherwise very weak.

So, to sum up, this book is well written, and has a good premise, but it is unfortunately spoiled by unlikable characters and an unpleasant plot twist that is not only unsettling to read, but also of no value to the book.

Without it, perhaps I would’ve been more impressed by other parts of the story, but it ruined any pleasure I might have gleaned from this book.

One out of five stars, and that is purely for the excellent grasp of written English.