The Geography of Murder by P.A. Brown

The Geography of Murder by P.A. Brown
Publisher: MLR Press, LLC
Genre: BDSM, GLBT, M/M, Mystery/Suspense

Review Copy Received from Author

Summary:

Jason Zachary finds himself with a map straight into a murder rap when he runs afoul of Santa Barbara detective Alexander Spider, charged with the murder of a man he's never met.

Jaime's Review:

Every once in a while, you read a story that reaches inside you and touches where you live and breathe. Quite often, you find those moments in the most unlikely places. A while back, I read Ms. Brown's Lynx Woods, and it was a good story. I picked up The Geography of Murder figuring it would be a good, interesting read. I like police procedurals on tv. I like m/m interaction, especially of the D/s flavour. I was way more than pleasantly surprised by what I found in the pages of this so called murder mystery.

I've not read a lot of BDSM, really, and I didn't realize this would be quite so BDSM; it's not something I'm overly familiar with, in life or fiction. There's not a whole lot of explicitness. I didn't miss it even a bit. Ms. Brown has a knack for slotting the sex in where it needs to be, and allowing her folks the privacy of their games when it's appropriate. I did not expect to find, in the pages of a murder mystery, a reflection of life as I know it. Ms. Brown managed not only to tell a tale of murder that kept me thinking throughout, but she laid out the lives and hearts of two characters in such a way I couldn't look away. There were not just Jason and Spider on the page, but feelings and dilemmas I can completely understand because they are just that real.

If you know anything about my reading habits from reading my reviews, you know I like flawed characters. I enjoy watching broken men put themselves back together. I enjoy watching oblivious people find themselves in the last place they ever think to look. Most, though, I enjoy when I come away from a book with the realization I've found a tiny bit of insight into myself from what I've just read. That, I think, is what every author hopes to do, and what so few of us ever manage. It takes excellence to write a story that leaves a reader feeling they've just lived an entire lifetime inside the pages of one story, and come away touched, different in some maybe minute way, but still, changed from the experience. Pat Brown has that rare gift, I think. Or maybe I just read the book at the exact right moment in my life to really appreciate it. Call it kismet if you want, but in my experience, that kind of connection, story to reader, does not happen in a void. It happens because the person writing the story has some serious talent and has done something spectacular. I read a lot of books. Not many leave me quite this entranced.

Jason is, at first blush, a pretty self centered, shallow kid. One might even go so far as to think he's not so likeable. Then he embarks on a journey, almost falling into self discovery without meaning to, but rather than balk, rather than slink away from the truths he's not sure he wants to know about himself, he finds his own personal strength and honesty, and makes the hard choices. Sometimes, walking away is the last thing you want to do, and the first thing you should do. Too often in romance stories, that impossible place of knowing where you belong and knowing you can't stay there is glossed over or ignored altogether in favour of the easy HEA. Ms. Brown doesn't make anything easy here. It takes guts to possibly piss off your readers that much. It takes guts to keep the characters true to themselves and the path you set them on. It pays off, though, because there is nothing so satisfying as a true ending.

Spider is no saint, either. He makes some huge mistakes, and one has to wonder what Ms. Brown was thinking, making him so fallible as to do so much damage to everything he touches. But people aren't perfect, and often, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and never figure out why things don't work out as we want them to.

Ms. Brown pushes her characters past their limitations. Like a true Domme, she pushes, pressures them until they break and we see what they are truly capable of. I am amazed to have found a little bit of myself on the pages as I watched these two find themselves. That's not something that happens every day.

One thing I do have to point out, though. I watch a lot (read too much!) tv, and police procedurals are right up there at the top of my favourite shows. What always strikes me is the tiny piece of evidence at the beginning, the thing that seems most insignificant and unrelated to anything else, that ties everything together, and by the time you get to the end and have almost forgotten about it, it pops back up as the mystery comes back full circle to whatever it was everyone almost missed. Well, if that tiny bit of evidence was here, I did miss it. I'm still trying to figure out how Spider makes the final connection. Even once all the dots are joined up, the motivations spelled out, I don't see how Spider figured it out. Could be I was too caught up in the romantic melt down by then to care as much about the mystery, or it could be it wasn't actually there. I'm not sure. Tell you what, though. This is one book I will definitely go back and read again. Maybe I'll see what I missed.

My Recommendation:

Whether you like cops, a bit of BDSM, or just to see what makes people tick, this is a fantastic book.

Rated 5 Delightful Divas and a Recommended Read by Jaime!





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