Review - Object of Desire by Dal Maclean

Tom is nearing the top of the modelling profession. A true supermodel. He’s also being pursued romantically by the head of the agency, Nick, who has left his wife to be with Tom. When Nick’s wife is brutally murdered, suspicion naturally falls on Tom. Nick hires a top-class lawyer who recommends they also hire a private investigator to look into suspects the police are likely to ignore. Things get more complicated when the investigator turns out to be Tom’s ex-boyfriend, Will. More deaths follow, and all the clues point to Tom, but Will refuses to give up trying to track down the actual killer, and Tom can’t help regretting ending things with Will. Can Will forgive Tom for how he ended the relationship, and will it matter if Tom is arrested for the murders?

“Object of Desire” is set in the same contemporary London as Bitter Legacy and features several of the same secondary characters as the first book. Although the books are not part of a defined series on most sites, you should probably read “Bitter Legacy” before this one to get the background of many of the people who appear in this story.

The story is related entirely from Tom’s point of view. Being a model was not a career choice. He was discovered by an agent, who has become a good friend, and while Tom is very good at it, it’s not his passion. He’s allowed himself to be carried along for the ride, but now that Tom is in the middle of a murder investigation in which he is the prime suspect for several deaths, it’s time to take control. That’s not the only life choice Tom is rethinking. Like Ben in “Bitter Legacy,” Tom has firmly avoided relationships. It’s why he broke up with Will, because they were getting too close. As we get to know more about Tom, we see that there’s more to it than just wanting to be a free spirit.

We get to know Will through Tom’s interactions with him. It’s not a case of “the one that got away.” We soon learn Tom rather brutally pushed Will out of his life when things got serious. Will is not quite the opposite of Tom. He could be a model himself, at least as Tom sees him. You could describe their personalities as complementary, but there’s a lot of baggage for Tom and Will to deal with before they can get back together again. The ups and downs of their relationship, along with the twists and turns of the mystery, provide many reasons to keep reading.

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“Object of Desire” is available from Smashwords or Amazon (commissionable link).