Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Procedural, Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Maryann
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About The Book
Time Didn’t Heal All Wounds, and the Scars were About to be Ripped Open
Stevenson
When I’d moved from Homicide to the Cold Case Unit my friends headed, I’d thought it would be a new start. The minute my marriage fell apart, I’d lost my purpose. Years passed, and I hadn’t found myself until I’d helped my friends catch a serial killer, but I’d also found friends and family. As I’d searched for a case among dusty boxes, a decades’ old murder and missing person case caught my attention. The autopsy report sent me to the ME’s office and the man I’d avoided for months.
Doc
Making death my job didn’t allow for normal friends, but the dead needed an advocate, and it was the only purpose I’d known. Being a medical examiner was all I’d had for decades, and I didn’t know what to do outside my job. I had a group of friends, all worked in law enforcement and forensics, but one thing was missing. Short, adorable middle-aged men weren’t getting swept off their feet. When my secret crush needed my help with a case, to the detriment of my sanity, I said yes. All I had to do was not be my weird self and blurt out everything in my head.
When a missing person case turns out to be more than it appears, can Stevenson keep Doc safe from a twenty-year-old threat?
Warnings: May contain mentions of sexual, physical, and mental abuses. Passive Suicidal Ideation, self-harm, and mental illness. These are mainly off-page, but there may be detailed flashbacks and conversations of said acts. Yet if these are triggering for you, please feel free not to read the story. Your self-care and mental health are more important. Thank you.
The Review
J.M. Dabney takes us back into that dark world of cold cases with Cold Cases and Dark Secrets. Detective Carter Stevenson and Doc Morgan Warner will open up one of their most terrifying cases.
Stevenson, forty-three, has finally settled in with the “Cold Case Unit” and the unique personalities of the crew. He was married but is now five years divorced. He has low self esteem in his lonely situation. Now, he’s never at home enough to even call it home.
On a whim, he decides to randomly select a case to tackle out of the many cold cases in the department’s files. The case stems back to 1997, and needless to say it was handled badly. Detectives didn’t investigate, evidence was untested, there was no documentation and Lab Supervisor Coleman neglected doing his job. Stevenson would need help on this one, and chooses Doc Warner.
Doc, at fifty-six, is the Senior Medical Examiner, and has an eidetic/photographic memory. He’s the only one that can get what’s needed out of his biased lab supervisor, Coleman. Doc is a “little” and has gotten along with Stevenson well enough, but something about Doc sets Stevenson on edge.
Both Doc and Stevenson are struggling with relationship failures, age, and never finding the one person that they could call their own. Even though they want the same thing, misunderstandings and miscommunications could ruin a friendship.
Doc already has his hands full as the Feds have him reexamining hundreds of cases with guilty verdicts that were mishandled by the coroner. As he tries to fit in Stevenson’s cold case, they will both be overwhelmed with by the gruesome death of a young women and kidnapped boy.
It leads them to a mother who already served time in prison, and who tried to investigate the situation on her own, along with three other women who were incarcerated for the disappearances of their sons.
The case will take Stevenson and Doc into the streets, and will require help from Boss and the Outreach Program. It will alsp lead them to the eerie world of cults. The Cold Case family comes together when danger and death threaten one of their own.
Dabney creates another twisted mystery with Cold Cases and Dark Secrets. This book is even more exciting than the first one, Cold Cases and Second Chances. It has the same dark element, with the psychological feel and the complex investigation that goes into cold cases. It’s also action-packed, a race against time to save additional victims.
There’s so much more to this exciting, intense, edge-of-your-seat novel beyond the cold case, as Doc and Stevenson try to find the chemistry that could bring them together.
Cold Cases and Dark Secrets exposes the needs of the Cold Case “family” that many in society look at as abnormal. But everyone has different needs. The story also showcases the bias and injustice of law enforcement and the legal system.
Besides Doc and Stevenson, the rest of the Cold Case family is back: Robert and Remy; Vega and Cash; Graves and a newcomer Detective Marcel Douglas; and SWAT Commander Dolan Sharp.
With the addition of Detective Douglas, I can’t wait to see what Dabney has in store in book three, Cold Cases and Bitter Enemies!
The Reviewer
Hi, I’m Maryann, I started life in New York, moved to New Hampshire and in 1965 uprooted again to Sacramento, California. Once I retired I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida in 2011 and just moved back to Sacramento in March of 2018. My son, his wife and step-daughter flew out to Florida and we road tripped back so they got to see sights they have never seen. New Orleans and the Grand Canyon were the highlights. Now I am back on the west coast again to stay! From a young age Ialways liked to read.
I remember going to the library and reading the “Doctor Dolittle” books by Hugh Lofting. Much later on became a big fan of the classics, Edgar Alan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and as time went by Agatha Christie, Ray Bradbury and Stephen Kingand many other authors.
My first M/M shifter book I read was written by Jan Irving the “Uncommon Cowboys” series from 2012. She was the first author I ever contacted and sent an email to letting her know how much I liked this series. Sometime along the way I read “Zero to the Bone”by Jane Seville, I think just about everyone has read this book!
As it stands right now I’m really into mysteries, grit, gore and “triggers” don’t bother me. But if a blurb piques my interest I will read the book.
My kindle collection eclectic and over three thousand books and my Audible collection is slowly growing. I have both the kindle and audible apps on my ipod, ipads, and MAC. So there is never an excuse not to be listening or reading.
I joined Goodreads around 2012 and started posting reviews. One day a wonderful lady, Lisa Horan of The Novel Approach, sent me an email to see if I wanted to join her review group. Joining her site was such an eye opener. I got introduce to so many new authors that write for the LGBTQ genre. Needless to say, it was heart breaking when it ended.
But I found a really great site, QRI and it’s right here in Sacramento. Last year at QSAC I actually got to meet Scott Coatsworth, Amy Lane and Jeff Adams.
