J.L. Merrow

Review - Stop Cock by JL Merrow

My rating:

Tom and Paul are looking forward to a romantic honeymoon in Sorrento but things take a disappointing turn when Paul's old school friend Wayne, who bullied Tom in school, shows up at breakfast the first morning, staying in the same hotel. The situation doesn't exactly improve when Wayne falls to his death from the hotel terrace a few nights later. It's hard for the pair not to look into the man's death, especially when it comes to light that Wayne may have had plans that involved Tom and some local gangsters.

Tags: Mystery

Review - Lock Nut by J.L. Merrow

My rating:

Psychic plumber Tom and private investigator Phil should be busy planning their big gay wedding, but a friend of a friend asks for their help finding her husband who disappeared a few weeks before. Then things get complicated, as they always do, when the pair find the missing man, and then he turns up dead. This fifth and presumably final book in the Plumber’s Mate series delivers another intriguing mystery along with the conclusion to the story arc of Tom and Phil, two very different men who somehow work well together, most of the time some of the time manage not to kill each other.

Tags: Mystery

Review - Blow Down by J.L. Merrow

My rating:

Psychic plumber Tom Peretski is definitely not enjoying the publicity engendered from his last case, as recounted in Heat Trap. People either don’t take him seriously, or expect him to do tricks like a performing monkey. Among the latter is a hi-so acquaintance of his sister Cherry, who ropes Tom into demonstrating his abilities at a village fête. But when he sets out to find what’s hidden, he doesn’t expect to stumble over the dead body of the woman herself.

Tags: Mystery

Review - Heat Trap by J.L. Merrow

My rating:

Psychic plummer Tom is still struggling with the revelation he received at the end of the previous book, Relief Valve, that the man who raised him was not really his father. It makes him doubt what he thought he knew about both of his parents. Meanwhile, Tom’s maybe-boyfriend Phil is asked to look into a stalker bothering one of the barmaids at Tom’s favorite pub. This third installment of the Plumer’s Mate series is a bit of a departure.

Tags: Mystery

Review - Relief Valve by J.L. Merrow

My rating:

Tom, the plumber with a supernatural knack for finding things, is back for another adventure. Tom is settling into his relationship with private detective Phil, whom he reunited with in the first book of this series. But Tom isn’t the only one in a new relationship. His sister Cherry announces that she is going to marry a priest. When Cherry gets poisoned at her engagement party, Tom and Phil are naturally on the case.

Tags: Mystery

Review - Pressure Head by J.L. Merrow

My rating:

Tom’s life took a sharp turn at the age of 17 when he was hit by a car while running away from bullies. Rather than pursue a high flying career in law or medicine like his siblings, Tom settles for a quiet life as a plumber in the town of St Albans, where he occasionally puts his ability to “find things” to use helping the local police. He thinks he has made peace with what happened to him, until, that is, he meets up with one of the bullies who chased him, who also happened to be Tom’s first crush.

Tags: Mystery Contemporary

Review - Fall Hard

My rating:

After eight months of recovery from a fall which killed his lover and nearly took his own life, Englishman Paul returns to Iceland to pick up the pieces of his academic career, and try to recover the memories of the year leading up to the accident. Although he lived and worked there for a year, Paul can’t remember his colleagues, the places he visited or even, most worrying of all, his lover Sven.

Tags: Mystery