Police detective Aaron Fowler doesn’t believe that it’s possible for graphologist Joel Wildsmith to accurately read people’s characters and actions from their handwriting. He’s convinced that the man is pulling a con. Joel has no love for the police, but he’s insanely intrigued by Aaron’s handwriting. He’s determined to prove he’s not pulling a con, and if the tests Aaron presents to him allow them to spend more time together? Eh, neither is complaining. Except that one of the tests leads the two of them to suspect that a very powerful man high in the police force is doing very, very bad things…

Back in December, I listened to A Thief in the Night by this author. It was a short novella, under 3 hrs, a fun little romp. I saw a few others by the author that intrigued me, and this was one. I was expecting another romp, but this one was a lot meatier. It was a romance and thriller mixed into one, but also addressed a lot of heavier topics: homophobia, the value of / problem with policing and laws, the issues that injured veterans face and how little support they receive, the bias against women in the workplace, etc. This was a historical setting, allowing each of the themes to carry more obvious weight than they do in today’s society, where such biases are often more subtle, though just as insidious. Quite clever of the author, really.

The romance parts fit right in without feeling forced or out of character. I think if I read another book by Charles and it’s just as good as these first two, I may have just found myself a new author to add to my favorites.

PS – Isn’t that cover art gorgeous??

Performance: The audiobook was narrated by Cornell Collins. He has a lovely voice that I quite enjoyed, but I struggled to tell who was speaking from time to time. The characters’ voices were too similar, and when mixed with internally spoken dialogue, I often had to go back 30 seconds and relisten a few times to figure out who said what, and what was spoken aloud.