Title: Dim Sum Asylum
Author: Rhys Ford
Narrator: Greg Tremblay
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Run Time: 9 hours and 44 minutes
Category: Urban Fantasy
At a Glance: I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Buy it, you need to have it in your collection if you like your M/M fiction to have more than one note.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: Welcome to Dim Sum Asylum: a San Francisco where it’s a ho-hum kind of case when a cop has to chase down an enchanted two-foot-tall shrine god statue with an impressive Fu Manchu mustache that’s running around Chinatown, trolling sex magic and chaos in its wake.
Senior Inspector Roku MacCormick of the Chinatown Arcane Crimes Division faces a pile of challenges far beyond his human-faerie heritage, snarling dragons guarding C-Town’s multiple gates, and exploding noodle factories. After a case goes sideways, Roku is saddled with Trent Leonard, a new partner he can’t trust, to add to the crime syndicate family he doesn’t want and a spell-casting serial killer he desperately needs to find.
While Roku would rather stay home with Bob the Cat and whiskey himself to sleep, he puts on his badge and gun every day, determined to serve and protect the city he loves. When Chinatown’s dark mystical underworld makes his life hell and the case turns deadly, Trent guards Roku’s back and, if Trent can be believed, his heart… even if from what Roku can see, Trent is as dangerous as the monsters and criminals they’re sworn to bring down.
Review: Dim Sum Asylum opens in the middle of a police chase, in an alt-world San Francisco where Asian magic, spell casting, and animated killer statuary are commonplace. Roku MacCormick is on the heels of his partner, who has stolen a clutch of dragon eggs. When that renegade partner kills a bystander, Roku has no choice but to kill him. This sets off a chain of events that the Arcane Crimes Division must recover from. So Roku, who is still grieving his own tragedies which are compounded by having to kill his partner, finds himself paired with Trent Leonard.
While both men have a past they would like to ignore, not talk about and generally avoid, they find themselves not just forced to work together but oddly attracted to one another. All this despite the fact that someone keeps trying to kill Roku, while Roku’s crime lord grandfather has pegged him to become the new head of the family, and Roku’s oldest friend has gone missing. And then there’s the trail of bodies left in the wake of the San Francisco Chinatown’s magical killing crime spree, all of which center around Roku and his family.
Through every twist, turn, mystery, and bit of magic, Greg Tremblay’s narration is spectacular. There are not enough complimentary words for a voice actor who can keep a cast of characters individual, the action fast paced, the attraction interesting and the lovemaking intense and joyful through words alone. Ford once again gives us a whole new world to explore and wish for return visits to. By the end of this story, you know the secrets Roku and Trent both harbor. They are slowly revealed on an as-needed basis, and they just add to the layers of goodness Tremblay gets to play with in his voice work. Each new layer, each new character, adds to the completely enjoyable acting being done.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Buy it, you need to have it in your collection if you like your M/M fiction to have more than one note. The narration by Greg Tremblay is among the very best I’ve heard. Buy the book to listen to now, go back and listen to it again to find new layers in it, and buy it because when book two comes out (there better be a book two), you don’t want to be behind everyone else.
You can buy Dim Sum Asylum here:
[zilla_button url=”http://adbl.co/2vBKWyb” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Audible [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”http://apple.co/2vBWX6y” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] iTunes [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”http://authl.it/B0742FWZMV?d” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon [/zilla_button]