Product Description

Sequel to 'Murder Most Gay'

Promoted to his own patrol beat after solving a series of anti-gay murders, Prince George County police officer Patrick St. James is happily deepening his relationship with his new lover, Dean, when more young, gay men start turning up dead. He and fellow officer Hank Capstone, now in a relationship of his own with a cute clerk from the local Seven-Eleven, face being outed by a blackmailer as they begin their investigation into the murders.

As the killings continue and the pressure to find the perpetrator intensifies, Pat and Hank go undercover again, and Dean has to face the sometimes harsh realities of loving a cop. When a chance DUI stop nets them a potential witness who implicates one of the most powerful men in the state, the two officers have to choose between risking their lives and letting the murderer get away scot-free.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79542 in eBooks
• Published on: 2008-09-15
• Format: Kindle Book

Customer Reviews

Good Sequel
This book takes up a couple of weeks after Murder Most Gay ends. It is a good sequel, but if you haven't read MMG you won't be lost. It is the continuing story of Pat, his boyfriend Dean and Hank-Pat's partner at work. Someone is killing gay men again and Pat and Hank end up on the Task Force to find the killer. Pat and Dean's relationship is evolving nicely and Hank finds a boyfriend as well. It is not a mystery since we are told fairly early on who the killer is, but is more about how they catch him. There were a few editing issues that were annoying, but not too hard to ignore.

Carching the Murderer
Simpson, John. "Task Force", Dreamspinner Press, 2008.

Catching the Murderer

Amos Lassen

John Simpson follows his novel "Murder Most Gay" with the sequel, "Task Force". What makes this book so interesting is that the perpetrator of the crime (which I will get to in a moment) is revealed early on and this is not about catching him but about seeing how a police force proves him to indeed be guilty.
Two weeks after the ending of "Murder Most Gay", new policemen Pat and Hank are on the street doing usual cop legwork--taking care of little incidents. They soon hear about a series of murders and wonder if they have anything in common with the previous case. Pat is deeply involved with his new partner, Dean when he is called upon to deal with the new string of murders. Hank is also involved with a new squeeze. Hank and Pat are in fear of being outed by a blackmailer as they begin their investigation. The killings continue and so does pressure to find the guilty person and our two cops are forced into going undercover and purely by chance, they find a witness who points at one of the most powerful men in the state. Now Pat and Hank are forced into risking their lives to catch him or to let him get away.
It really isn't necessary to have read "Murder Most Gay" to follow what is going on here but it would help you to understand Hank and Pat better since their relationship evolves from the first book to the second.

Imaginative and realistic crime drama with two gay cops as heroes!
Their "rookie" days behind them, Prince George County (Maryland) police officers Pat St. James and Hank Capstone are now on solo patrols, dealing with the majority of mundane police calls on their overnight shifts. They're also settling in a bit in their private lives, Pat with his live-in lover, Dean, and Hank with a hunky boy-toy he ironically met in a convenience store! They deal with an attempted blackmailer, threatening to "out" them to their fellow police officers. Two cases of murder, involving young men who had been drugged, raped and strangled, lead to familiar territory with Pat going undercover as "bait" for the killer, who turns out to be a high profile public official.

Simpson indicates this as a "sequel" to his early "Murder Most Gay" crime novel, featuring the same characters, and it is best read after reading the first book. Enough detail about prior events is provided to allow it as a stand-alone read, but an empathy with the characters from the previous book would add to the enjoyment of the read.

It is a thin line that authors of "erotic novels" walk, trying to keep the balance of sexually-explicit content to the point where it adds, rather than detracts, from the pacing and plot of the book. It's a line that Simpson hit perfectly in the first book, but I think the erotic passages here - which were all in the first half of the book, delaying the start of the "real" story, dragged the book down. Still, it is a clever and original crime novel, with a refreshing "real" take on police work, and I give it four stars out of five.