Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novella

Ike Hernandez is fresh out of prison, and he’s walking home to New Mexico, even though home doesn’t exist anymore. It has become a mine and all the residents have been displaced or moved into a new area…a very poor area. Along the way, Ike picks up a ratty little red dog and carries him wrapped in his thin coat. It’s gotten very cold, and it’s starting to snow, but he keeps walking.

Officer Perry Parker happens to come upon Ike on his trek. He feels bad because nobody should be out there in this cold, so he asks Ike to get in his patrol car to get warm. He also takes him to get a hot meal, and then he offers to let Ike and his little buddy stay at his place until he can get on his feet.

Ike takes Perry’s offer, and everything is going pretty well. Ike gets two jobs and starts to make some money, and he realizes he really enjoys Perry’s company. Meanwhile, Perry is out trying to track down drug dealers who are helping to destroy the poor population. He’s facing overdoses, child endangerment, and robberies. It’s wearing him down. Then one night, he has a nightmare and Ike comes to comfort him.

A Cop and a Con was relatively short novella, and I’d have loved to have had it be a novel. For a novella, quite a bit of detail was given, and it was easy to get caught up in Ike and Perry. I liked both men for their generosity and dedication, and I think the fact they were both quiet, proud men made their coming together so much better. I believe there were only two sex scenes. They were sexy, but not over the top. That actually worked for this story.

The drug dealing subplot was well written, and sadly, it’s altogether plausible. It’s all too common for depressed areas to become havens for drug dealers. The people who live there become hopeless, and the drugs help ease their pain. Unfortunately, the children pay, and we’re faced with that when Perry has to rescue two little ones from a terrible situation. It’s hinted that someone in Perry’s family had an issue with drugs, but it’s not brought to the forefront. For Ike’s part, he’s tall and skinny, and the dealers and addicts alike say the main supplier, they call him El Feo (I looked it up on Google, and it translates to The Ugly One), is a tall skinny man with a very strong resemblance to Ike.

The final quarter of the book was filled with suspense and action. I was completely caught up in the story, and once again, I wish A Cop and a Con could have been longer, simply to explore the bad guys a bit more.

I highly recommend this novella if you have about an hour to spend, and you’re looking for something exciting and sexy. Also…the last few paragraphs were awesome. I won’t give them away, though. Just read it 🙂