Cut & Run (Cut & Run, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Sep 24, 2011 D.G. rated it liked it

Shelves: reviewed, queer

For a while I wavered between a 2 and 3 star rating: 2 stars because of the asinine suspense plot (note to authors: if you’re going to include a suspense plot in your book, please have it based in some semblance of reality…it’s not fantasy after all!) But, despite its flaws, the relationship between the characters was interesting enough that I settled for the higher rating and I will give a chance to the next book in the series.

C&R is really a romance with some random suspense to justify jerkin For a while I wavered between a 2 and 3 star rating: 2 stars because of the asinine suspense plot (note to authors: if you’re going to include a suspense plot in your book, please have it based in some semblance of reality…it’s not fantasy after all!) But, despite its flaws, the relationship between the characters was interesting enough that I settled for the higher rating and I will give a chance to the next book in the series.

C&R is really a romance with some random suspense to justify jerking the characters around and add some hurdles in their affair. It’s really about two deeply hurt men who unexpectedly find each other in the course of their work. Their relationship is dark, gritty and painful. It starts exclusively as a work one, morphs into a sexual one and then evolves into some sort of love, although at the end you are not very sure if it’s going to work out (and thus the need for a sequel.) One of the things I liked about the book is that you could clearly see these stages…they didn’t start out lusting immediately after each other but resented being partnered and the personal feelings emerged after they knew each other better.

Ty & Zane talk a lot but say very little. After reading hundreds of pages of their exchanges, I can’t say that I understand them or even know them very well. They had circular conversations where nothing was settled and most of the time I didn’t even know what they were talking about. Even their reactions baffled me. Sometimes they would get offended for who knows what reason and they would do the opposite of what I thought they would do. So far I can’t decide if this was a good thing (I like when characters surprise me) or a bad thing (are the authors jerking the reader around?)

The suspense plot didn’t make absolutely any sense (I’m a mystery reader AND I live in NYC so I have some knowledge here.) Since 9/11, NYC is full of cameras so there is NO way that a murderer could kill several people over the course of months in places where there’s usually surveillance, following elaborate methods that could take HOURS to put together without nobody ever seeing him, a camera EVER capturing this person and NEVER leaving a trace of evidence. I mean really! Not only that, but the villain always seemed to know where Ty & Zane were so you wondered how he managed to follow them around, kill the people and work his job without anybody suspecting him (maybe he could split himself in two so he could be in two places at the same time.) From the beginning, you know that the killer is ‘one of us’ so you would think that anybody acting weird would be suspected but no…nobody ever suspects this guy. Also, the big clue to the murder is something any mystery reader would know so it stands to reason that if the NYPD or the FBI didn’t figure it out, at least one of the 8 million New Yorkers would have noticed the pattern and called 1-800-577-TIPS to clue them in. (This is the actual number to report a crime in NYC and you don’t even have to reveal your identity.) I can go on and on about the stupidity of this plot but I want to avoid giving myself a heart attack.

I’ll give the next book in the series a try because it seems to be focused on the relationship and I want to see where this is going. But if I don’t see any progress, I’ll just let this series go.

(Provided for review by Dreamspinner Press via netGalley.) ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Aug 03, 2011 Dina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, to-review, ebook, m-m, romantic-suspense, series-cut-run

3 1/2 stars (rounded down to 3 stars because the story was a bit longer than necessary and the mystery was fairly easy to solve, which made me think that Ty and Zane weren't the smartest cookies in the FBI jar) ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Jul 17, 2012 Kelly (Maybedog) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: how-ebook, what-male-protagonist, why-favorite-series, what-suspense-thriller-action, what-mm-read, why-favorite-author, what-mystery, what-lgbtqia, where-grr-mine, what-uniforms-and-investigations

Cut & Run

2.0 for writing and execution, 5 stars for enjoyment, plot and themes

It's hard to justify that rating because really, this isn't that well written. I mean, the writing itself was okay most of the time, but the way it was written, the execution, ugh. People really need to pay good editors to go over their stuff before they self publish. This is better than most as you can see by my and others ratings but I think with good editing this could have been picked up by a regular press.

I'm goin ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Nov 25, 2015 Nancy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, action, m-m-romance

Second Reading
Five years later and I have just completed a second reading of Cut & Run. Maybe I'm in a different place, maybe I've matured, but OMG I LOVED this book. It's really interesting reading my review from 5 years ago, because none of that bothered me this time. I couldn't get enough of Ty and Zane's banter and I was madly in love with both of them right from the beginning. Perhaps on the second reading I was more interested in the tortured relationship and far more invested in both of t ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 27, 2014 Logan rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle-books-to-lend, own-bought-ebook, 2014-books-read, meet-greet-read, m-m-romance, suspense

Zane and Ty completely hooked me, as well as the mystery. I liked the case they worked together, and even though it got a bit slow in the middle and I figured out the killer, the romance aspect kept me reading. I couldn't help but root for these two to find happiness, or at the very least, comfort together. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 05, 2010 Yusra Asaad rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, m-m-read, 4-stars

A serial killer is loose in New York and the police can't figure a pattern. Every murder is different, the victims seem to be random, the locations, the method and even the final presentation seem different. The only thing in common is that the killer is leaving weird tokens that don't seem to explain anything.

Then the FBI sends in Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett who get partnered together for the first time while being the complete opposites of each other. Ty the streetwise wiseass and ...more

Like · see review