Narrated by J.F. Harding
This sixth book in the Cut & Run series sees a change of pace, a change of publisher and a change of narrator, with J.F. Harding taking over from Sean Crisden. I would have happily continued listening to Mr. Crisden until the end of the series, but I certainly won’t complain about the substitution, because Mr. Harding is an excellent performer and I knew he’d do a great job with these stories and – most importantly – characters who have become such firm favourites.
Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett have come a long way since they met and fell in lust in Cut & Run. They’ve grown together through a camping trip from hell, a luxury cruise that saw them targeted by international criminals, riots, bombings and anarchy closer to home and a road trip in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong (book five, Armed & Dangerous) – and by the time we reach book six, Stars & Stripes, are in a committed relationship that’s lasted for almost two years. Although there’s an engrossing mystery plot running in the background, Stars & Stripes focuses heavily on character and relationship development and allows Ty and Zane to be the sappy couple who are very much in love – and in the grand scheme of things it’s the calm before the storm of book seven, Touch & Geaux, which broke my heart, ripped it out and stomped on it several times over.
Ty and Zane are now living together, although as far as their colleagues know, they’re merely house- mates who share living space and a mortgage. But it’s getting more and more difficult for them to hide the truth about their relationship and both feel the strain of not being able to be openly affectionate or at having to look over their shoulders to see who might notice any mis-step. They’re both starting to think about what might be next for them, especially as Zane will be retiring from the FBI in a few years and there’s no question they’re in it for the long haul. When Ty goes home for the weekend to help out with a repair project, Zane accompanies him, the first time they’ve been back to West Virginia since their disastrous camping trip. Ty’s brother, Deuce, is also there, and Zane, who had been a little unsure of his welcome, is soon made to feel almost like part of the family and thoroughly appreciates the warmth and closeness of the Gradys, which is like nothing he’s experienced in his own family. There’s a difficult moment when Ty’s shovel-wielding grandfather Chester outs them; Ty had intended to tell his parents the truth about him and Zane anyway, but still, would have liked to pick his own moment. He’s most concerned about his father’s reaction, expecting to take flack for being queer, but is completely surprised to discover that his dad is more pissed about the fact that Ty had hidden his sexuality from them and run off to join the marines in an attempt at denial than he is about the fact that his son is in love with a man.
Before the weekend is over, Zane receives a phone call from his sister telling him that their father has been shot. He took a bullet in the arm and isn’t badly hurt, but there’s something suspicious about the circumstances – and Zane must leave for Texas and the Carter-Garrett ranch to try to get to the bottom of things while Ty returns to Baltimore.
Zane gets on well with his father and sister, but his mother is a different matter. Beverley Carter-Garrett is cold, aloof and single-minded in her devotion to the ranch and the family name. She doesn’t approve of her only son’s career choice and constantly dismisses Zane’s job and achievements; for her, the only thing of importance in his life should be the ranch, and she wants him back home, taking his place in the family and business, preferably re-married with children. Anything else is beneath him as a Garrett.
After a few days of badly missing Ty and wondering how long he’ll be able to put up with his mother’s carping without losing his temper, Zane is overjoyed to find an unexpected visitor on his doorstep. Ty has finagled some time away from the office, intuiting that Zane could do with his support at what must be a difficult time, and together, they start digging around to see what they can discover about who might have shot Harrison Garrett and why. They also have to contend with Zane’s mother’s downright disdainful attitude towards Ty, and her unwillingness to change her social schedule in spite of the fact that her husband was shot on his own property in broad daylight. The mystery plot here is one of the less whacky ones in the series, and it rumbles along nicely throughout the book before reaching a characteristically high-stakes, tense finale.
But as I said earlier, the real focus of Stars & Stripes is character and relationship development. Zane tells his dad and sister the truth about him and Ty – and Harrison and Annie are happy for them both, seeing clearly how much Zane has changed over the last couple of years. From being a man locked in a spiral of self-destruction who shut off his emotions and was almost sleepwalking through life, he’s become more settled, warmer and happier, and I loved those little moments where they individually let Ty know how grateful they are for his presence in Zane’s life. And I particularly liked Zane’s little epiphany about the way he’d adopted his mother’s method of closing off her emotions and shuttering her expression whenever things got difficult, and his realisation as to how hurtful it must have been for Ty on those occasions Zane had done the same thing. It comes home to him just how far he’d withdrawn himself and he determines never to do that again – his secrets are all out in the open and he’s ready to move forward with the man he loves.
J.F. Harding has quickly made his way onto my list of narrators to trust. His voice is smooth and well-modulated, his performances are well-paced and clearly enunciated and he’s a good vocal actor, imbuing the characters with the right emotional nuance and portraying them appropriately and consistently. Obviously, I was keen to hear how he’d voice Ty and Zane; I really liked the way Sean Crisden portrayed them in the previous three books (especially Zane) and it’s hard NOT to make comparisons when different narrators are used in the same series. While Mr. Harding’s interpretation of the pair is different, he nonetheless captures the essence of both characters very well. There’s not such a large variation in pitch between them, but it’s more than enough for the listener to be able to differentiate them easily, and that little Texas twang adopted for Zane seemed accurate to me (not that I’m an expert on US accents!) and it was easy to understand why it got Ty all hot and bothered (!). He does a great job with Ty as well, bringing out his sense of fun and that touch of little-boy petulance that surfaces occasionally, and he performs the sex scenes with a lot of confidence and conviction, which I always think are key when it comes to achieving the right tone and balance for the listener. The large-ish secondary cast of Gradys, Garretts, and others are all clearly differentiated, and I had to giggle at his portrayal of Zane’s three-year-old niece, which was ridiculously cute.
Stars & Stripes might be my favourite book (so far) in the series. The way Ty and Zane have grown as characters throughout the series is impressive, and their relationship continues to grow positively – we’ve never seen them as happy and settled before, and I really appreciated that, considering that the synopses of the rest of the books in the series promise more action and mayhem and little time for reflection. J.F. Harding continues to impress, and I’m looking forward to listening to him round out the series.
Caz
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