Review: Temporary Partner (Valor and Doyle Mysteries #1) by Nicky James
Can two rivals work together to solve a case?
When an infant is taken from his carriage in broad daylight, missing persons detective Quaid Valor must race against the clock to find the child and bring him safely home to his family. Unfortunately, Quaid’s partner isn’t available, and his team is spread thin. Begrudgingly, Quaid must accept help from his rival, homicide detective Aslan Doyle, if he wants to get the job done.
Aslan is Quaid’s opposite in every way. He’s bold, outspoken, arrogant, and the office playboy. And much to Quaid’s chagrin, Aslan seems to have set his sights on Quaid as his next conquest.
Quaid doesn’t have time to deal with Aslan’s flirty behavior when he’s trying to solve a case and juggle his cheating ex’s incessant interruptions.
It doesn’t matter how attractive Aslan is or the undeniable chemistry they seem to have. Getting involved with Aslan would be a huge mistake.
But as tension with the case builds, Quaid keeps forgetting he’s supposed to hate this new partner. Maybe Aslan is exactly the kind of distraction he needs.
Temporarily at least.
Right?
**Temporary Partner is the first in the Valor and Doyle Mysteries. Please view any trigger warnings by using the Look Inside feature**
Review:
Unfortunately it did not quite work for me. Question one, since the book is written from a first person POV which switches between Aslan and Quaid, should not their voices be at least somewhat different?
If I had not see the name of the POV character, I would not have realized that POV character actually just changed and I did not like that at all.
A much bigger problem for me was the fact that I found both of them (but especially Aslan) to be so annoying. Aslan changing his lovers often (he mentions it so often I have to believe him) would not bother me at all (obviously I could guess that if he would get together with Quaid he would stop doing so), but as long as the characters know and agree that they are not going to be monogamous, I don’t mind that.
But what in the name was the sexual harassment he subjected Quaid to ???? I understand that from their meeting a few months ago he would have suspected that Quaid was attracted to him, but they did not see each other, meet or talk at all after that. They are basically strangers at this point. What the actual what was that? Hint to Aslan, that was not an innocent flirting as he seemed to think.
At some point Aslan gets the hint (finally) and kind of stops, but a lot of what he said was when the actual investigation was already underway. I actually cannot agree at all that he behaved professionally right away. At some point, probably, but not right away.
Why did I find Quaid annoying too? I wished he would be honest with himself and kicked his scam of a lover to the curb faster than he did. I fully understand that he was stuck in a cycle, I feel bad for him, it is just my emotional reaction.
Was there anything in the story that I liked? The investigation, I thought it was detailed and well told and I found the conclusion to be very realistic.
It is weird, because I thought it was well told, but at the same time I did not think it was well *written.* The writing as a whole just did not work for me unfortunately and no, I cannot explain why.
Grade C/C-
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I really didn’t enjoy the first book in this series either – the writing struck me as childish and stilted in some way, like fanfiction where the author is hitting all the tropes (banter! smirking!) but there’s no spark or substance to it. From memory, Aslan in particular came across as obnoxious and inappropriate as opposed to rakish and sexy. However, the series gets a lot better as it goes along. I haven’t read the latest installment, but book 3 in particular was quite good.
I loved Nicky James’s THE ENDLESS ROAD TO SUNSHINE, a very well done story about a man who has to come to terms with the fact that (unbeknownst to him) his husband was a serial killer. Some of her other books lean heavily into taboo tropes (incest, “twincest”) which may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I haven’t read the Valor & Doyle books yet, but I understand that the first book is the weakest, and the relationship between the MCs (and the overarching mysteries in the stories) are developed much more organically in the subsequent books.
@Gab: @DiscoDollyDeb: thank you both for commenting. Maybe I will give book two a try one day.
I DNF’d this one when I tried it awhile back. The “flirting” (while the other guy was trying to take witness statements!) was so inappropriate that it threw me out of the story. I couldn’t believe in him as a professional.
@MaryK: That was pretty bad I agree.