Review - Bitter Legacy by Dal Maclean

James is a Detective Sergeant in London's Metropolitan Police, working in the murder investigations team. He's on the fast track to becoming a full inspector in a few months. It's a radically different career than the one James' father had mapped out for him in the family oil business, but after coming out, James was estranged from his father and determined to create the life he wanted independent of his family's wealth. When James and his team are called to the scene where a young woman is brutally murdered, it turns out to be the start of a series of seemingly unconnected deaths.

One of the leads in that first murder takes James to a converted townhouse where he meets one of the tenants, Ben. The man, about James' age, is very nice, and gay, and has a room for rent. When it seems that the lead is a dead-end, James welcomes Ben's offer of the room since he's desperate to escape the cheap bed-sit he rented when his father threw him out of the penthouse he was living in. Once he moves in, James finds he has a lot in common with Ben and can't help falling for the other man. But, there's one fundamental difference and some secrets that may keep them apart.

You probably won't realize until the very end of the book just how appropriate the title “Bitter Legacy” is for this story. It takes quite a while for James to work out the connections between all the murders. You'll probably make some guesses about what's going on before James figures it out, but even if you're right, chances are there will still be some surprises for you in the end.

The story is told entirely from James' point of view. We get to know him quite well. The transition from oil company executive to police detective seems a bit sketchy but not completely implausible. We get just enough of James' back story to know the basics of what happened. His reactions to Ben seem entirely natural and understandable.

We get to know Ben entirely through James' eyes. His rejection of monogamy is not unheard of among gay men, but it was clear to me long before James figured it out that there was something else going on in Ben's mind. The other key character in the story is Steggie, Ben's downstairs neighbor. He becomes something of a catalyst in Ben and James' relationship, and it's Steggie who will perhaps surprise you the most at the end.

“Bitter Legacy” is available from Smashwords and Amazon (commissionable link).