“Friends are family members we have a choice over.”–Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I just love this series. It is the perfect mix of humor, mystery, friendship, family, love and really sheet scorching hot sex. When I read the first one, I didn’t realize it was the first in a series until the last sentence. I was seriously homicidal. These characters that Mr. Webb has created, along with the ones created by Havan Fellows, Laura Harner and Lee Brazil have kept my mind planted firmly in Atlanta (or as my friend Max Vos and many others call it, Hotlanta). That name is a sure fit while reading the books that make up the Pulp Friction Series.
Mr. Webb’s main characters are Marcus Prater and Benjamin Danvers. In books one through four, they went from being in their own personal hells to loving and living together in a committed relationship. They are surrounded by Marcus’s family and their group of friends whom they consider to be every bit as much family as the blood kind. They are determined to find a killer who is preying on young men forced by circumstances to work as rentboys. This man killed a friend of Ben’s. Someone Marcus and Ben were trying to help find a safe and happy life off the streets.
One of the “brothers”, Wick has a hit them and quit them mentality. Never lets anyone get close. But he usually sticks around close to his brothers. This time, he has disappeared with his new lover whom his brothers don’t know. Wick is totally incommunicado. His brothers need him when more dead rentboys are found, and for the first time ever, Wick isn’t there for them.
As the group celebrate an early Thanksgiving a plan comes together to apprehend the killer with the help of Brady, the killer’s latest erstwhile victim who was able to escape. He is badly hurt and scarred physically and emotionally for life, but he is alive and willing to help catch the man they have been able to identify as being his attacker.
T.A. Webb in Darkest Knight has managed to keep the energy and emotion going. In a series as ambitious as this one, involving four authors and approximately twenty stories, the mojo starts to go. That is so not the case here. I could read another ten stories about Ben and Marcus and their happiness complicated by their tendency to get pulled into dangerous situations. They are a couple to remember.
Ty & Zane, Adrien & Jake, Vic & Jacob, Cole & Jae. There are many more. These are couples that readers of M/M fiction feel like we know. We care about them and want to know what they are up to. I can easily add Ben & Marcus to this list. I want more! To the best of my knowledge, there is one more story to come. It will be co-written by all four authors and hopefully tie up so many loose ends Anne Tenino could crochet a cock out of them. I think I’d like one of those cocks, but I’d rather know how Ben, Marcus and their family end up.
I can’t recommend this series highly enough. That includes all the Pulp Friction books by T.A. Webb, Havan Fellows, Lee Brazil and Laura Harner.
You can buy Darkest Knight (City Knight #5) here:
