A Dangerous Thing

An Adrien English Mystery, Book 2

By: Josh Lanyon

Narrated by: Chris Patton

Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Suffering from writer's block and frustrated with his tentative relationship with hot but closeted LAPD Homicide Detective Jake Riordan, gay bookseller and mystery writer Adrien English travels to northern California where he finds a body in his front drive. By the time the sheriffs arrive the body has disappeared, and Adrien once again finds himself playing amateur sleuth. But when the game turns deadly, Adrien turns to Jake. Jake may be confused about some things, but keeping his lover alive is not one of them - no matter what the cost.

©2012 Josh Lanyon (P)2013 Josh Lanyon

All the stars

I enjoyed this so much that I bought the audio version too and did a hybrid reading/ listening thing. The audio is excellent too! The narrator is one of the very best. 5 starts for the book and the audio too.

But I’m not really sure why Jake is so smitten with Adrien… maybe I missed something or I should have read 1,5 before this. The jump in the relationship in the beginning was a bit surprising, so if you know what I missed please let me know 😘

“Sex wasn’t everything. There were other things: someone to see you through sickness and in health, someone to wake up with on Christmas morning, someone to bail you out of jail. Companionship counted. Sex wasn’t everything — but it was a lot.”

A Seamless Transition from the First Book

Josh Lanyon really outdid himself this time. This book is simply great. The story was so compelling I listened to the whole thing in one day! The book made a perfect transition from Fatal Shadows. If you haven't listened to Fatal Shadows yet, I recommend buying both and listening to them in order.

Brokeback Treasure Hunt

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. Josh Lanyon's prose is so good, and his ability to weave trivia and facts and romance is unmatched in my opinion.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Jake Riordan: a fascinatingly complex character.

What about Chris Patton’s performance did you like?

Always excellent.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Traditional. Good Mystery Caper

Typical Lanyon. Enjoyable but lacked previous tension. Enjoyed it, nonetheless. Excellent narration, which helped maintain interest.

Another Great "Adrien English" Installment!

I'm absolutely in love with this series! The stories, the characters, the narration....brilliant! A Dangerous Thing is the second book in the series, and I couldn't put it down! It's a great murder mystery with lots of twists and turns, along with a helping of romance and passion to heat things up.

main character blah

I hate how series go on that the main character ends up becoming an imbecile and an idiot. definitely overly annoying and predictable it's a decent storyline and I'll end up finishing the series. Hopefully?

I think I just don't like Lanyon

I was bored. I still want to finish this, b/c I finished book 1 but... I am pretty bored. I kinda already know what is gonna happen and this is supposed to be a mystery...

Narration is great, but story is still awful

I…have issues with this book. The Adrien/Jake interactions is really all I liked about this book, because this the story has issues. First-off, I know the first edition of this book was published way back around the early 2000s, so this book is almost 20 years old at this point. I’m not sure anything besides the cover was edited, but there’s some racist language (like the n-word by a character to show how “backwards” he was but I want to say this was removed from the audiobook) and stereotyping in this book that definitely makes it an uncomfortable read. This book is extremely racist on top of a lot of other things. There’s the internalized homophobia that was already present in the first book, Fatal Shadows, so I’m not entirely sure I would feel comfortable recommending this series at all.

The story starts with Adrien having writer’s block. And wanting to get away for awhile. He decides to take a trip up to the ranch his grandmother had left for him up in northern California. He hadn’t been back in years and paid a man to keep an eye on the place. However, the minute he arrives at the ranch, he spots a body on the road. When he phones the sheriffs, and returns back to the spot, the body is gone.

The mystery aspect is intriguing. I read this book in one sitting. There’s a missing body but no one in town believes that anyone is even dead and believes that Adrien is just making things up. Problems start to arise when Adrien keeps digging into the whole affair. It’s a small town, and as an out-of-towner, Adrien looks like the number one suspect when another body turns up on the property. There’s a host of suspects. There’s the missing handler – the guy who’s in charge of looking after the ranch. There’s also a group of archeology students digging around Adrien’s property he definitely never signed off on. And then there’s Native American lore about the place that doesn’t sit well with Adrien.

Adrien and Jake are in a tenuous relationship. If it can even be called that. “Relationship” might be a step to much in Jake’s book. Even at the beginning, Adrien recounts the one time they almost kissed. But they didn’t because Adrien, as Jake puts it is, “not a chick.” I feel for Adrien, I really do. He’s in a rough spot of falling for Jake, and Jake keeps pushing him away.

Even as he felt Jake was the first person to call for help, Adrien found out that he’s not the only person Jake was sleeping with. They’re not in a monogamous relationship, and Adrien believes Jake is still in the BDSM scene with other guys. But it’s the shock that Jake is still sleeping with women. Jake isn’t bi or pan. He clearly identifies with being gay, even as he also hates himself deeply for it. Jake has spent his entire life pretending to be straight, and he doesn’t know, or want, anything different. This is the first time we get Jake’s age? We find out that Jake has turned 40 and is eight years older than Adrien.

There’s a fair bit of racism and Native American stereotyping that goes unchallenged in this book. Oh, Adrien looks down on the racist language, but that’s really all we get from him. He’s very judgmental and against the BDSM scene and is quite disdainful about Jake’s involvement in it, because it’s something he doesn’t try to understand, I guess?

The audiobook narration in this one is still good. Chris Patton does a wonderful job as Adrien and the voices he gives the characters feel really natural. I will say the pauses between scene breaks is correct in this one and feels less like something randomly shoved into the audiobook.

Anyways, I’m not a fan of this story, it’s pretty awful. But I suppose the ~action in this book and Adrien and Jake’s relative seclusion away from LA is what saved the book for me. If all the books in the series wasn’t already out, I probably wouldn’t bother continuing with the books. But, I’m interested in seeing how Adrien and Jake come together in the end, so onward to the next book!

Romance grade A......Mystery grade C

The best part of the book was the romance and chemistry between Jake and Adrien. The mystery itself seemed to be made up as Adrien went along. By made up I mean, it was hard to determine what the mystery focus was supposed to be, was it murder or something else?I won't describe the something else because it is a part of the story. It's one of those stories where, because there isn't really any character development you have to add more people to help create the story. I drifted quite a bit. I perked up when Jake and Adrien were front and center. He does an excellent job in this area. I'll listen to another book because of this fact. If you are looking for an amazing well-developed mystery, I don't think these books can give you that. I do think that they can explore a couple of gay characters and not make it solely be about sex or stereotypes. Overall, they are what they are and I'm glad there are writers out there creating this type of material.

Tapping out of a dangerous thing

Like others, I have favorite book series, authors, and narrators. Unlike others, I also have a favorite reviewer. This book series is the holy grail for this reviewer… so I went for it.

I’m sorry. I just can’t go on with this series because of how poorly Jake treats Adrien. Part of this is his rejection of himself as gay… and projecting it onto Adrien. After reading the reviews for book 3, where apparently Jake really really treats him terribly, I’m tapping out now.