Title: Suspicious Behavior
Series: Bad Behavior: Book Two
Authors: L.A. Witt and Cari Z.
Narrator: Michael Ferraiuolo
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Run Time: 7 hours and 58 minutes
Category: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense
At a Glance: I highly recommend this book and the others in Audible format because of the excellent job that Ferraiuolo does with the material. It’s a great book and first rate series.
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: Detective Darren Corliss is hanging by a thread. In between recovering from a near-fatal wound and returning to work at a hostile precinct, he’s struggling to help care for his ailing brother. His partner and boyfriend, Detective Andreas Ruffner, wants to help, but doesn’t know how. And with his own family crises brewing, Andreas is spread almost as thin as Darren.
For cops, though, life takes a backseat to the job. When a stack of unsolved homicides drops into their laps, Andreas and Darren think they’re unrelated cold cases. But when a connection surfaces, they find themselves on the tail of a prolific serial killer who’s about to strike again.
Except they’ve got nothing. No leads. No suspects. Just a pile of circumstantial evidence and a whole lot of hunches. Time is running out to stop the next murder – and to pull themselves back from their breaking points.
Review: Darren and Andreas are back in book two of the series, and things are more complicated than ever. The duo’s relationship started in book one, which would be good to listen to before you listen to this one but is not absolutely necessary. They can be read individually because the case they are working on is introduced and resolved in each individual book. Bad Behavior is a four book series from this author duo; it originally published back in 2017 in e-book/paperback format, but is just now being released in audiobook. Michael Ferraiuolo does the excellent narration on this series and the books flow one to another, with his voice providing a continuity of character for the series. These books follow each other in storyline and as such, they end in an HFN format, until book four, which is the culmination of Darren and Andreas’ love story.
At the beginning of Suspicious Behavior, Darren and Andreas are still reeling from their first case together and being labelled persona non grata in the aftermath of bringing down practically a whole precinct of dirty cops. Life isn’t easy at work or at home, with both men now dealing with personal issues as well as those at the station with their fellow cops…. Add in a very clever serial killer, and things get very interesting, fast. Just as in book one there is a crime(s) to solve, and the books rely heavily on the procedural aspect of police work to move the story forward. We have a genius psychopath in this installment, and the twists and turns uncovered on the way to the truth are both enlightening and confusing all at the same time. However, that’s what makes a great who-done-it, and this story takes us on an intriguing ride till the very end. Our detectives not only have to solve the string of murders, but they have to solve it within a certain time frame, and that puts a delicious tension on the whole storyline. To be able to bring down this particular serial killer they have to get into the mind of the madman and understand his motivations for killing to finally bring him to justice. There’s even a nice red herring thrown in for good measure.
The characters of Darren and Andreas are very well developed, courtesy of book one, and in this story their bonds deepen and they start to round themselves out with familiarity. There isn’t a great deal of sex in this book, as both men are exceptionally busy with work and family issues—Darren, especially, is still physically healing from the wounds he suffered in the first book. What we get is a deepening bond, a more secure connection, as in the middle of all the crazy, each man reaches for the other to hold and to support and to love. This book is where they solidify themselves as a couple and learn to lean on each other, no matter what. They move beyond the surface with each other, and the relationship becomes richer for it. The declining health of Darren’s brother Asher is a heartbreaking addition to the storyline but adds a layer of humanity to the story it wouldn’t have otherwise.
Michael Ferraiuolo’s narration of these stories is insightful and spot on. I truly enjoyed his rendition of these characters and never had an issue with knowing who was speaking. His elocution was distinct for each character and stayed true throughout the story. Listening to his flawless articulation helped my mind to stay on point with the unfolding of the mystery instead of being thrown out of sequence by a wrong intonation or cadence. I highly recommend this book and the others in Audible format because of the excellent job that Ferraiuolo does with the material. It’s a great book and first rate series, so if you like mysteries with some romance thrown in, I highly recommend the whole Bad Behavior Series and especially Suspicious Behavior in audiobook.
You can buy Suspicious Behavior here:
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