Brief Encounters

Title: The Cop and the Hooker
Author: Donna McIntosh
Length: 44 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: m/m contemporary
Rating: D

Blurb:
Ben is a cop 24/7—at his desk before anyone else in the morning and at his desk each evening after everyone else has gone home. His only release from work is the secret visits he makes to clubs where he can find willing companionship—male companionship. Ben has no desire for a relationship, until he meets Cody and can’t get the rent boy out of his mind. Cody knows the last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a cop, but when he has nowhere else to turn, Ben may just prove to be his salvation.

Review:

*spoilers in this review*

I’m a sucker for a hooker story so the title of this story caught my attention straightaway. What a shame then that I found it to be generally unrealistic with inconsistent characterisation.

The story tells of Ben who was married to the sort of woman crops up with wearying regularity in m/m books – sexually frigid and emotionally cold but with pots of money. After the death of his wife, Ben has spent the last few years working diligently to climb the ladder as a cop, but to satisfy his libido he visits discreet clubs and picks up male prostitutes. On one such occasion he meets Cody who matches his need for sex and has the kind of nipples and dick that appeals to Ben. He wants more of Cody but Cody’s not interested in a regular john.

As I said there was a lot of inconsistency in this story. Ben is dedicated to his job, but is willing to jack it all in at the end for a man he barely knows. He emphasises how careful he is during sex but there’s no mention of condoms during the sex scenes. Cody remarks dreamily about how tender Ben is towards him during sex but all the sex scenes that are shown on the page are rather forceful with a distinct lack of lube or preparation. Cody claims not to want a regular customer, but that seemed an odd thing for a prostitute who was trying to work off a large debt and needed regular work.

I also found the written style rather clunky. Much of what we know about Ben is given to us in paragraphs of info-dump rather than being shown to us. There’s also a fair amount of head hopping which I found distracting.

Finally, the story turned into an insta-love with Ben declaring that he loved Cody after just 2 nights of sex. I admit that the two men are very sexually compatible in that they both have a supernatural ability to go at it like a train all night, but that does not equate to the sort of feelings which drives a man to give up his entire life and a job he was supposedly passionate about.  Maybe if we had seen the pair a few more times, saw them as just as compatible out of bed as in, then I may have been happier about the ending.

The story wasn’t all bad. There was a nice scene in the middle of the story where Ben helps a newly divorced guy with his first sexual experience and I thought that the author had done a good job at showing Ben’s frustrations at not getting what he wants – ie, a regular hook up with Cody.

Overall though, this story was a bit of a flop for me and I may well have not finished it if I hadn’t been reviewing. However, I am only one reader and there may be others out there who connected better with the characters and writing than I did.