BOOK BLAST
Last Loose End
Author: K R Allen
Publisher: Self-published
Cover Artist: Fiverr
Release Date: May 6, 2018
Genre/s: Contemporary M/M Romance, Action/Adventure/Spies
Trope/s: Gay for You
Themes: Authenticity, acceptance
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 122 917 words/ 296 pages
Blurb
Australian secret agent Cole Pearson never could stay out of it.
Now he is AWOL and on the run with Sean Trammel, analyst for mining giant ARBUS dodging killers and cut off from help as he never is overseas. As they try to uncover the reasons behind the attack on Sean, Cole unexpectedly realises that he has reasons purely personal and increasingly physical for wanting to keep this man safe. And as they discover the stakes for their hunters they know that it is going to take more than Cole’s charm, guns and wits to keep Sean alive and out of their clutches.
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Excerpt
It was the skulking action that first caught his eye. Even without the dark grey fatigues, not couture de rigueur for urban Brisbane, the light step and hurried, almost sneaking motion was deeply suspicious. Cole sat up straighter in his car, the boredom from sitting for five straight hours disappearing in an instant. The skulker slid along the side of the office building heading towards the back. Any legitimate visitor to the building would go through the front door, check in at the counter maybe. It wasn’t the building Cole was supposed to be watching and it was extremely unlikely that the skulker was the Indonesian intelligence officer he was looking out for but he was intrigued nonetheless.
“Now what are you up to buddy?” he muttered. A moment later he saw the man wasn’t alone. Two more men dressed in similar dark grey fatigues followed his path. Cole looked up and down the Spring Hill street. People were coming and going and not paying the slightest attention to him or the men moving into the building across the road from him.
Cole tapped his fingers against the vinyl of the steering wheel. He knew he should mind his own business. It wasn’t what he was there for and he knew he’d only been given this surveillance detail as punishment for his latest misdemeanour. He didn’t think his career could stand many more infractions. Anyway, it was warm in the car and while it was a sunny day out and midday, outside the air was chilly in typical Brisbane May weather. Still...he caught sight of another two figures and pursed his lips. Someone’s day was about to go to crap, he thought reasoning with himself. And really he could do with some movement. For an hour he had sketched passersby and played license plate poker on and off but mental stimulation didn’t keep the blood pumping. A moment more of internal debate and he grabbed his gun from under his jacket on the passenger seat and slipped out of the car. He was just going to take a look he told himself.
On this street the buildings were actually accessed at road level half way up the building with at least four floors below due to the way a hill had been cut into years before. The skulkers had wound their way from street level up the maintenance gangways which wrapped around the sides and presumably the back of the building like a mesh exoskeleton, up two floors so Cole followed at a distance. He saw the lead man jimmy open a door and the whole string of them, bar one who stayed by the door as look out, slipped inside pulling on ski masks as they did so.
‘Just taking a look’ would end now, Cole thought. No matter how he spun it. He’d clearly seen them go into a building he wasn’t supposed to be monitoring. At most he should call the Police. Instead, he double checked the magazine in his pistol and set to finding another way into the building.
Cole went back down one floor and used a fire extinguisher to break open a door and found himself in a back hallway near a couple of storerooms and the toilets. He slipped his gun into the back of his pants pulling the buttoned shirt free of his waistband so it could hang over the top to hide the gun. Following the hallway he entered an open area with a kitchenette along one wall and an open eating area with a floor to ceiling window looking out onto a courtyard type arrangement. When he encountered a couple of people, he adopted his best ‘yep, I’m meant to be here’ countenance and kept steadily on. He’d had a lot of practice blending in and it did not fail him here. Pretty much everyone ignored him. Just beyond the kitchen was a void through at least five levels with stairs to the next level up and down. The timber stairs squeaked slightly at his steps but still no one gave him a second glance. It was the usual thing, he thought. If you were in everyone just assumed that you were supposed to be.
Carra's Review
If you’re the type of reader who likes spy stories that can be a bit drawn out, have high body counts, and can be a bit over the top…you’ll find that here in Last Loose End. There’s the requisite spy guy who gets caught up in something outside of his expected duties; an innocent bystander who doesn’t understand why the bad guys are after him; cloak and dagger games abound; and maybe a touch of romance? This is one of those books where a pros and cons review will better help me get my thoughts down.
Pros:
-Likeable characters. I did like both main characters—Cole always seems to know how to handle things, and Sean plays the clueless innocent well if a bit too clueless at times.
-The action scenes are exciting and held my attention well.
-I did have a hard time trying to figure out why the bad guys were after them.
Cons:
-This story was longer than it needed to be. While yes, there are good action scenes, there’s also the gaps between them that are a little tedious. Everything just felt too drawn out to me.
-When I said it can be a bit over the top, I meant it. The casualties kept piling up, and it seemed like every time Cole kept collecting more weapons…again and again.
-The point of view changes were giving me whiplash—not just within a chapter, but within breaks in a chapter and sometimes even in a single paragraph. This made it harder to follow along and had me having to step away quite often from my reading as it became very frustrating.
So again, if you’re a spy story fan and the romance aspect is not as important to you, this will probably be right up your alley. I’m going to sit on my fence a bit longer, and give you the “this book is for readers 18+” warning for the adult language and violence.
About the Author
Kathryn Allen is an Australian cross-genre author of magic realism romance Ever Man and male/male action thriller Last Loose End along with a frankly ridiculous number of in-the-works fantasy, action and drama novels. For added confusion, she also writes under the names K R Allen and Kathryn R Allen. She enjoys writing about characters taller, bolder, quicker with the comebacks and infinitely better shots than she is.
Find out more about Kathryn at: https://www.kathrynallen.com.au/
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