I feel like I am forever doomed to hate everything that everyone else loves. Okay ... now it's official: I hate Josh Lanyon's books. For ages I've put off saying that because I never got further than the first 20 pages of one. It seemed unfair to judge based on practically nothing. But now that I've sat down and forced myself to read one from beginning to end I can finally say I hate Josh Lanyon's books. 
 I wanted so badly to like them!!! It's terribly unfair, Lanyon swoops in like a super hero in a land filled with books where characters whine and angst and steal plots from teen primetime dramas, and gives us books with artfully executed prose and well thought-out plot lines and interesting twists and turns. The only characters that behave like girls are the ones with vaginas---I SHOULD LOVE THESE BOOKS 
 And yet ... this book literary bored me to tears. It was a good mystery, but there wasn't anything even remotely interesting about these characters. Nothing. The MCs were bland, the minor characters were such cardboard cliches and I could never keep any of them straight. There was only one thing interesting about Perry (view spoiler)[he can shoot (hide spoiler)], but even that wasn't revealed until 80% of the way through and served only to make the ending believable (view spoiler)[after over a hundred pages of being convinced that Perry is basically a wet leaf it wasn't terribly effective (hide spoiler)]. 
 Perry and Nick were cute ... sort of, it came a bit too close to Insta-love for me. One minute they're strangers to each other, the next (before they've even had a decent conversation) they're pining for each other in secret? 
 Even if I bought that, the relationship itself is nothing interesting: Perry is sensitive and artistic, Nick is an ex-SEAL whose sexuality got him kicked out and has just ended a sham marriage. He feels protective of innocent and weak Perry and doesn't trust him to be able to fend for himself against scary murderers. There's nothing about these characters that is anything close to unique. Halfway through I realized this is always why I stop reading Lanyon's books after twenty pages. The writing is great, the plot is well constructed but I always find his characters bland and unengaging. Come on, give us SOMETHING! A little spark! A little snark! God forbid a little LUST! 
 Anyway, I couldn't help feeling like this could have been a great mystery, but it promises you something wacky and slapstick (I mean a dead body/ghost with yellow socks?) and never delivers on that. Instead it's an OK mystery with a m/m romance pasted on to sell it.