Sin and Tonic Sinners Series Book 7
M/M Mystery Romance
Dreamspinner Press
May 15, 2018
Miki St. John believed happy endings only existed in fairy tales until his life took a few unexpected turns… and now he’s found his own.
His best friend, Damien, is back from the dead, and their new band, Crossroads Gin, is soaring up the charts. Miki’s got a solid, loving partner named Kane Morgan—an Inspector with SFPD whose enormous Irish family has embraced him as one of their own—and his dog, Dude, at his side.
It’s a pity someone’s trying to kill him.
Old loyalties and even older grudges emerge from Chinatown’s murky, mysterious past, and Miki struggles to deal with his dead mother’s abandonment, her secrets, and her brutal murder while he’s hunted by an enigmatic killer who may have ties to her.
The case lands in Kane’s lap, and he and Miki are caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. When Miki is forced to face his personal demons and the horrors of his childhood, only one thing is certain: the rock star and his cop are determined to fight for their future and survive the evils lurking in Miki’s past.
Reviewed by: Ulysses Dietz
Member of The Paranormal Guild Review Team
The seventh and final installment of the saga of Miki and the Morgans is killer. In every meaning of the word.
Over the course of these seven books, Ford’s post-modern Punk operatic style has grown more eloquent and sharply honed. It is always over the top—too much emotion, too much violence, too much intensity. And therein lies this series’ seductiveness, exemplified by its whizbang finale. Ford gives her prose all she’s worth, and the writing fairly crackles with verbal choreography.
We end where we began, with Miki St. John, who just misses being gunned down in the opening scene. Miki is possibly the most splendidly damaged character ever to grace the pages of a gay romance. Right by his side in the opening scene is his large and loving boyfriend, Kane Morgan, surprised out of his bisexual lethargy five books ago by this quixotic, exotic, overdramatic semi-Asian rock star. Now Kane and Miki are an established couple, and Miki is more than an honorary member of the high-energy Morgan clan.
Miki is loved, many times over. He has his band, his boyfriend, and his surrogate family. And yet, and yet…the pain is there still. Deep and sharp and overwhelming. Only Dude, Miki’s ratty terrier, and Kane, Miki’s muscular dude, keep him sane.
Until the gunshots start.
This time, Ford is closing the circle, and Miki and Kane have to solve a mystery that threatens everything. The promise they can see ahead of them is to finally answer all the questions that Miki, and Ford’s readers, have had since that first book. Who IS Miki St. John? Where did he come from? And why is someone trying to kill him? Will the answers end Miki’s pain?
I can’t even hint at the fascinating plot twists. In spite of the inherent exhaustion of reading this series, I found my eyes welling up with tears with alarming frequency. Miki is almost a caricature of the damaged gay man, but he has weight. He’s real. You know him. His intensity draws you in and forces you to care.
Ford has meticulously fabricated an emotional and physical context for this misfit rocker, and the people who love him. She leaves us marveling at the vivid world she’s created, and regretting nothing, even if we’re sorry to say goodbye.
1st Place: LGBT/ROMANCE/MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
1st Place: LGBT/ROMANCE/MYSTERY/SUSPENSE – SERIES
