Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is one of my “what the heck, it’s on sale” impulse purchases.
Shattered Glass could also go by the alternate title Biting Lips because the characters bite their lips enough for it to be an obsession (of the characters and/or author). The main character, 26 year old police detective Austin Glass, frequently points out these biting lips, particularly those of a 20 year old hustler, the red-headed Peter, a volatile young man who has a shady past, a shady present and perhaps a shady future (in the ground) if he’s not careful.
Part police procedural and part coming out story, Shattered Glass begins with the Glass, a rich trust fund baby, preparing for his upcoming wedding. The story is narrated by him and he quickly demonstrates then confirms and re-confirms that he is a cheating, self-serving, smart-mouthed jerk. He also has daddy issues. And mommy issues. And then gay issues as he thinks back to all the signs that he was repressing who he really was when growing up. The planned wedding goes up in smoke. He begins a vision quest. Well, he gets drunk.
It comes to a head (and lips start getting bitten) when he and his grizzled veteran partner (yes, who woulda thunk it?) investigate a scheme that leads to a murder, arson and other fun stiff, all centered around the inscrutable yet angry yet distant yet tender but always smouldering hot Peter. Within a week Glass has fallen hard for the guy, despite constantly referring to him–usually to his face–as a whore. That could be the other alternate title for the story: Whore. You see the word a lot. Maybe Whores Biting Lips would be the best alternate title, although it perhaps suggests a different type of story than police procedural.
The two constantly fight, occasionally fool around a bit (the sex scenes are brief and would probably get an R rating if translated to screen, depending on how creative the camera angles were) then go back to fighting as the investigation gets increasingly complicated and dangerous.
The character of Glass reels off a constant sarcastic patter and I loves me some sarcasm, but it does wear after awhile. The story as a whole feels padded out, too, and yet still comes up short on dealing with the various relationships as the police procedural and “figuring out the gay” constantly vie for attention. Strangely, even though Glass ultimately come to terms with being gay, he doesn’t seem to experience any real growth as a person. He starts out an argumentative jerk (you know, one of those people who has to say something smart, no matter how ill-advised) and basically ends the same way, except in an allegedly committed relationship. It left me feeling like there were parts missing from the story, despite the aforementioned length of the novel.
Overall, though, this is a decent effort and though it wobbles a bit when trying to juggle the competing plot lines, I remained invested enough to stay with it to the end.
I’ve just discovered this is the first book in a series of Glass novels, though lamentably, the author elected not to give subsequent books awful glass-based puns for titles. Perhaps Glass experiences more growth in these additional books. Given the abrasive nature of the character I’m not sure I’d want to find out. But…maybe.
