Genre/Tags: LGBTQ Cozy Mystery, Romance

Author: Gregory Ashe

Story Rating: 5 Stars

Narrator: Andrew Gibson

Narrator Rating: 5 Stars 

Length: 7 hours & 37 minutes

Audiobook Buy Links: Audible

They say love makes fools of us all. It certainly makes idiots out of some of us.

It’s Dash’s second Halloween in Hastings Rock, and this year, he’s determined to have a normal spooky season—he’s going to hang out with his friends, hand out lots of candy, and seize every available opportunity for snuggles with a certain deputy.

Fate, though, has other things in store.

When Dash’s friend Keme is arrested for murder, Dash assumes it’s a misunderstanding—after all, this is Keme we’re talking about. But it turns out, not everyone in Hastings Rock trusts Keme. Or likes him. In fact, plenty of people are downright afraid of him, and for them, the arrest confirms what they’ve always suspected: that Keme is a seriously bad apple. And when Keme’s clothes turn up not far from the scene of the crime, covered in the victim’s blood, it’s the final piece of proof for the court of public opinion.

It’ll be up to Dash to prove Keme’s innocence.

But the real killer might have something to say about that.

Review: 

Keme is the youngest of the Last Picks. He’s eighteen now, graduating school and the people who are game enough, like Dash and Fox, ask him what he’s going to do after. What about college? Keme does not want to talk about it. He gets angry at any or all discussion about his future. Keme is pretty quick to anger, especially where Dash is concerned. But any thoughts about post school for Keme is soon nixed because a dead body has been found at the local RV park where Keme’s mother and her current boyfriend live. The evidence points to Keme. The Last Picks refuse to believe it. Not their Keme, but apparently Keme has been in trouble as a juvenile which is news to Dash. Bobby would have known, being a sheriff’s deputy, but he’s always been like a big brother to Keme. Dash is shocked when Sherriff Acosta lets Dash in on Keme’s juvenile behaviours around town – that he shoplifts. That he scares people. That he can be violent, destructive, unlikeable. Deputy Tripple calls him a ‘bad seed.’ Keme won’t talk to anyone once he’s picked up, par for the course with Keme, but the way he behaves toward Dash when Dash tries to initially help him, as Dash does, literally shocks Dash. So the set up is there to think, could he have done this? 

Keme has always had mystery surrounding him in the series, how can a seventeen-year-old not be at school a lot? How come he hangs around Hemlock House? We’ve all known he loves the effervescent Millie, who I’m pretty sure hasn’t noticed. In this book, Millie has a brand new boyfriend, Louis, one who I wanted to flay when he shushed her to mansplain while throwing Keme under a bus like a snitching rat. 

That was until Louis cleared his throat and said, “Well, Sheriff, he wasn’t with us the whole night.”
“YES, HE—” Millie began.
Louis shushed her and caught her hand to pat it. “Be quiet now, babe. I’ve got this.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that room. (If you still had functioning eardrums.)
I swear to God: Indira growled.
Fox crossed themselves.
“Keme was at the party,” Louis said – oblivious to the fact that he was one gingerbread house away from Indira roasting him in an oven. “But he was only there for an hour or so. He was gone by nine.”

It breaks Keme to see Millie with another guy. Apart from that heart-ripper, we get more on his life. We already know he sleeps in a room off one of the secret passages at Hemlock House – Dash has been leaving furniture in there, like you would in an attic, so it doesn’t look like it’s for Keme. He isn’t very good with any help. That last sentence is a complete and utter understatement. He rails against help. And sometimes Keme sleeps on the floor of Indira’s room in the carriage house. Other times he sleeps at a local lumberyard. Which is fucking heartbreaking. We didn’t know much about his family, though I’m sure all readers of this series wondered. Now, however, Keme is more front and centre.  

Dash: I loved how he refused to believe Keme could murder someone, irrespective of how rude and aggressive Keme has been previously, and he has. He lashed out even more in this book. Dash remains genuinely kind and compassionate and I continue to admire those qualities. Plus I enjoy it when he adds a justified passive-aggressive jab-

“We don’t believe in giving handouts,” Foster said over her. “We believe in teaching children to be independent.”
“Oh,” I said. “Like you?”

Bobby: Current boyfriend of the year entrant. He steps up so much for Dash. He walks a line in this book between friend, lover, and law enforcement, which is harder now because it’s Keme. Oooh, there’s a touch of partner intimacy too. Totally unexpected. I love how confident Bobby is in his own skin. His body positivity. However, Dash struggles with his own body. Thinks he’s pasty, with moles, and skinny. He generally doesn’t like what he sees of himself, and Bobby is so spectacularly built. Bobby, however, genuinely loves everything about Dash. As Billie Eilish so wisely sings in Birds of a Feather–
I want you to see, 
How you look to me…

When Bobby realises what’s going on, he handles it like someone who listens to and respects their partner – 10s across the board, Bobby Mai! 

The Last Picks may have given themselves a collective moniker for a reason, but I’d pick them any day because they’re quirky and loyal. They have each other’s backs. And yes, sometimes they’re weird about their connection. Indira is the mother figure who has looked out for Keme as best she could before Dash even hit Hastings Rock. Millie is full of emotions, unbridled LOUD excitement is one, sad in this book is another. Fox, for all their sarcasm and pushiness, is sometimes a kind parental figure.   

The humour in this book is especially good. It’s clever, sometimes goofy. I mean, why not? And I laughed often as I listened to the wonderful Andrew Gibson narrate Evil All Along. A lot of that was while I was pushing myself on our treadmill. I’m sure my husband thought I was losing it through pain as I would spontaneously make noises, it was laughter, but, seriously, who laughs on a treadmill?

Millie caught his hand and yanked him a step closer. “I want you to meet my FRIENDS!”
Here’s the deal: I’m a terrible person. I know that. I accept that. Which is why my biggest question was why Millie’s, uh, enthusiasm hadn’t driven Louis off. I considered the possibility that he was going to steal her kidneys.

“He’s probably a serial killer,” Fox murmured, as though answering my thoughts.

Keme: It would be easy to be miffed by some of the behaviour he exhibited. To do that, though, would be to minimise Keme’s CPTSD. His biological father is long gone. His mother, September, while seeming sweet, uses substance and clearly has a list of loser boyfriends, ones who reinforce the thinking that they’re all ‘teaching Keme how to be independent’ by ignoring him, meaning they don’t want her with a child, and she picks a man over her son. Then there’s not allowing him to stay at home. Not giving him parental guidance. Not offering any love. Taking money from him. He’s had to fight for diddly squat of not very much. What that does to a child, how it affects attachment, the Adaptive Child triggers leading into adulthood, it’s significant. He’s developed into an angry young man who wants to fight the world. Now eighteen, any semblance of affection or connection is met with his hostility. He understandably doubts care and love when they are shown. Millie being an exception but now she’s (unintentionally) hurt him too. It’s not dragged in the book. Ashe gives you enough to think and also join the dots and see why Keme is as he is. Dash, while not exactly the same, understands what it feels like to be mostly avoided by selfish parents.

The murder/mystery was well done. I picked it pretty quickly but thought I was just having some wishful thinking. There are multiple suspects, definitely four angry men who could have killed JT Haskins then his partner, Channelle. This particular cozy mystery got a bit hairy. Bobby often asking if Dash was okay was well and truly justified. Dash goes wildly above and beyond to find the truth. 

Overall:

This is my favourite series book along with Again With Feeling. It has a good murder/mystery. I’m more than content with the resolution of that. Dash and Bobby have come a long way and I’m very happy for them. It makes the series so much better for having them in relationship. The Last Picks are seeming to get more time in the spotlight and they’re gelling as a close-knit group. I like them all. I’m not great at series so I can’t believe I’ve read eight books with one break. I’m hoping to reach the end of the series. We’ll see. However, Andrew Gibson narrating keeps me coming back. He does a great job of delivering Ashe’s quirky characters and their feelings. For the nuanced, intimate, and vulnerable Evil All Along, it’s 5 Stars!