MURDER ON THE MOUNTAIN

MURDER ON THE MOUNTAIN by Jamie Fessenden

 

Pages: 210

Date: 31/08/2014

Grade: 4+

Details: Received from Dreamspinner Press

            Through Love Romances and More

Kindle

The blurb:

“When Jesse Morales, a recent college grad who aspires to be a mystery writer, volunteers to work on the summit of Mt. Washington for a week, he expects to work hard. What he doesn’t expect is to find a corpse in the fog, lying among the rocks, his head crushed. The dead man turns out to be a young tourist named Stuart Warren, who strayed from his friends while visiting the mountain. 

Kyle Dubois, a widowed state police detective, is called to the scene in the middle of the night, along with his partner, Wesley Roberts. Kyle and Jesse are instantly drawn to one another, except Jesse’s fascination with murder mysteries makes it difficult for Kyle to take the young man seriously. But Jesse finds a way to make himself invaluable to the detective by checking into the hotel where the victim's friends and family are staying and infiltrating their circle. Soon, he is learning things that could very well solve the case—or get him killed.”

My thoughts:

For a very long time mysteries and thrillers made up the vast majority of books I read. When I say a long time, I mean decades. Then, when I discovered M/M, I sort of fell into that genre and started neglecting my older love. While I’ve read M/M titles of almost every description imaginable, most of them tend to be romances. I have no issue with that since I enjoy them. Having said that, it always feels that little bit extra special when my two favourite genres come together and provide me with both a good mystery and a charming love story.

Murder on the Mountain is such a book.

The murder in this book was well plotted and gave us a limited number of suspects all of whom appeared to have valid motives. The reader is taken along on the journey as motives are discovered, suspects investigated and subsequently dismissed. The riddle certainly kept me guessing until the final moment and that, for me, is of vital importance when it comes to a good mystery.

The romance was as well balanced as the mystery. There may be instant attraction between Kyle and Jesse there is no unrealistic hurry to end up in bed together. While I wouldn’t call this an angsty romance, it isn’t all smooth sailing for Kyle and Jesse either. None of their issues are contrived though and none are dragged out.

The writing in this book is good, giving the reader a smooth read with just the right balance between romance, suspense and humour. And, while I’m on the topic of humour, there were some laugh out loud moments in this book. Jesse’s nickname, ‘Jessica’, made me smile every single time it was mentioned, as did his frustration with the, for him old, joke. The best laugh was found at the very end of the book though. It made me finish the book with a huge grin on my face.

I think I may have read somewhere that the author plans on writing more mysteries featuring Jesse and Kyle. This reader certainly hopes he does and can’t wait to meet these two charming men again.