Series: County Durham Quad
Volume: 4/?Publisher: Self Published
Genre/s: Crime, LGBTQ
Length: 60 000 words
Read in: English
Review copy format: epub
Rate:✮✮✮✮✮✬
Working on a human organ trafficking case, Nick Seabrooke comes back to Durham County, and thus to the object of his affection. By refreshing his acquaintance with the polyamory Quad, his feelings towards Mike also come alive. For Nick it means a constant analysis of himself and his feelings, while trying to find the doctors involved in organ trafficking. In both cases a lot can happen, a lot can go wrong and Nick is fully aware of this fact.
"Body Parts and Mind Games" is the fourth installment of "County Durham Quad" series, which I missed very much. I admit that I was extremely pleased that Nick Seabrooke is coming back to us in this volume. He is one of my favorite characters, and it's mostly because of the fact that he's asexual. However, my affection has nothing to do with my own sexual identity, although I'm also an ace. What I like about Nick the most is that he is still trying to discover and understand himself, and that's exactly what appeals to me in this case. Let me add that in "Body Parts and Mind Games" Nick really focuses largely on his feelings, needs, his sexuality or lack of it. You can't even imagine how deeply the author tries to penetrate this character's thoughts. But I think the most essential thing here is how Jude Tresswell does it. Because reading the novel we really feel that Nick is analyzing his feelings and some situations exactly at the time we read his story. Thus, "Body Parts and Mind Games" doesn't seem to be just some story the author tells us, but a part of our characters' lives, lives they live for real.
Another noteworthy aspect of the fourth volume of "County Durham Quad" is the story presented in this book. What can I say, I think it is very interesting and addictive. I like the fact that it focuses not only on action, and thus on the human organs trafficking case, but the most important topic of this installement is learning, discovering, trying to understand oneself. Due to the fact that the author combines these two main themes in similar proportions, the readers have a moment to take a breathe, as they have the opportunity not only to follow events that increase the level of adrenaline in our blood, but also to get an insight into Nick's mind and look at him from the other protagonists' perspective. Well, in short, this novel is really exciting, so it's a good thing that reading it we have a chance to slow down and take this calming breath we need.
I have already mentioned that "Body Parts and Mind Games" is an addictive novel and I want to come back to this topic. It turns out that writing this book, Jude Tresswell decided once again to "play" with the readers' feelings, with their love for the characters. Let's be honest, at some point the action of this volume is led in such a way that I was forced to flip through the pages to look for some spoilers concerning the later events of this novel and thus to find out what the author really prepared for us as the story unfolds. For me it was even more important because the unexpected action twist that stopped my heartbeat concerned one of my favorite characters, someone without whom this series would not be the same. Did spoiling the ending changed the way I felt about the events I've just mentioned in any way? No. "Body Parts and Mind Games" from the beginning to the end was a very emotional book.
Reading this volume of the series I also liked the fact that one of the topics discussed here is the need to accept the feelings of another person, to get used to them. This is how the author builds her Quad. Our boys try to be open to others, but in fact they close themselves to them, because they defend their relationship, their man, their life. I think the author showed it to us in a really interesting way that sheds a lot of light on how Ross, Raith and Phil perceive Mike, and what type of person Mike really is. What's more, "Body Parts and Mind Games" also underlines his importance for the Durham County Quad. However, it is worth adding that at the same time Jude Tresswell builds a relationship between our characters and Nick, strengthens their friendship, gives them the opportunity to accept him fully, and this really deserves our attention.
In summary, "Body Parts and Mind Games" is a really great part of "County Durham Quad". It is very interesting, greatly presents the main characters, their feelings, fears and problems, and it allows us to look at our characters from a slightly different angle. In short, this novel is definitely worth recommending.
Headcanon: working on it
Fanfiction idea: working on it
AU idea: working on it
Here's some more about:
Blurb
Book Title: Body Parts and Mind Games (County Durham Quad Book 4)
Author: Jude Tresswell
Trope/s: Sexual/asexual relationship; polyamorous relationship
Themes: Navigating ace/non-ace relationship; loyalty
Heat Rating: 2 flames
Release Date: November 4, 2019
It can be read alone, although it is 4th in the County Durham Quad series. Background information is provided for new readers.
A crime to solve, a lover to save, and an ace-happy ending?
Organ trafficking, types of attraction and far-right nationalism are ingredients in this tale about Mike, Ross, Raith and Phil, a gay polyamorous quad who live in North-East England.
Phil is a surgeon in Warbridge Hospital. A patient’s organs are harvested illegally. Are Phil’s colleagues involved?
Detective Nick Seabrooke returns to Warbridge to ask Phil to aid the investigation. Agreeing endangers the quad in more ways than one. How will Nick, who is asexual, react to meeting the quad again? How will they react to him?
This is the fourth story in the County Durham Quad series. Background information is included for new readers.
Phil is a surgeon in Warbridge Hospital. A patient’s organs are harvested illegally. Are Phil’s colleagues involved?
Detective Nick Seabrooke returns to Warbridge to ask Phil to aid the investigation. Agreeing endangers the quad in more ways than one. How will Nick, who is asexual, react to meeting the quad again? How will they react to him?
This is the fourth story in the County Durham Quad series. Background information is included for new readers.
Excerpt
From Chapter 2
“I hoped I’d never see him again.” Words that were being echoed three hundred miles away in London. Nick Seabrooke stood at the window of his flat and stared across rooftops to the dome of St Paul’s. He re-read Phil’s message. It was terse and to the point: Considered what you said. Will do it. Feel free to set a meeting up. Was it the answer he’d wanted? Yes, from one point of view. No, definitely not, from another.
He’d hardly believed what he’d heard the previous Monday. Nick was a detective with the NCA, the agency responsible for criminal investigations that went beyond national borders. Money-laundering involving forgery was his normal remit. He’d met the quad when Raith had been chief suspect in a case and he had been a sergeant. Now he was an inspector. So, he’d answered the chief superintendent’s call, expecting to be briefed about a fraud or a forgery. Instead, he was told about organ trafficking. But although trade in body parts was a crime that cut across borders, it seemed well outside his area of expertise. He’d tried to tell the chief so. Yes, the chief knew that, but whoever had requested Nick’s involvement knew that he had liaised, successfully, with Tees, Tyne and Wear Constabulary the year before and, more importantly, knew that he’d worked closely with a surgeon at the hospital at the centre of the enquiry.
“This doctor, Philip Roberts,” the chief had said, “would he be involved in something like this?”
“I very much doubt it, sir,” Nick had answered promptly. “I think he’d feel that it was beneath his ability and beneath his dignity. He’s totally focused on his own niche. He developed this graphene-based colorectal repair procedure almost single-handedly. He pioneered the research. He carries out most of the ops. I can’t see him whipping out a kidney or cornea when no one’s looking. And he’s conscientious. The ethics would bother him.”
“Money?”
“More than he needs and, I’d say, not particularly materialistic.”
“Then contact him,” he’d been told. “See if he’ll work with you on this. We need a medic inside that hospital. Eyes and ears and a way for you to get in and use yours. You stayed at his house, didn’t you, when you were up there last year?”
“No, sir. I stayed with one of the artisans. In Tunhead though. All the houses are owned by Roberts and the men he lives with. They rent them out to arts and crafts personnel. They call the venture BOTWAC—the Beck on the Wear Arts Centre.”
“BOTWAC?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting sense of humour. Well, see if you can stay there again. It’ll give you some safe opportunities to talk with this doctor without being overheard, and he can teach you all you need to know about proctology.”
Nick knew the meaning of ‘proctology’, but he was focusing on ‘safe’. Safe for whom? The chief misinterpreted his concerned look and his silence, and began to explain proctology.
“Yes, I know, sir,” he said, interrupting, and then he’d been politely dismissed, and tomorrow he’d have to phone Phil. Shit!
So that was what he’d done—phoned Phil, and now he had Phil’s answer.
He closed Messages and, almost reluctantly, opened Gallery. Should he scroll to it—the photo that he’d taken in Raith’s studio that last time he had met the quad? The photo of a portrait of Mike. He hadn’t looked at it for months. …………
………….. Mike had fascinated him, but he realised that he’d rarely even thought of County Durham, or Tunhead—or Mike—for weeks. He was over his crush or whatever it was. So it hadn’t been love. Couldn’t have been love. So, really, he should be able to bin the photo. It shouldn’t be a problem, should it? There was no good reason to keep it, was there? But, although he could resist opening the file, he couldn’t bring himself to press Delete. Couldn’t bring himself to execute that oh-so-final break-with-everything action. So, what did his reluctance, his cowardice, mean? Well, soon he’d have more than a photo in front of him. He’d have flesh and blood. It wouldn’t be so easy to avoid looking at the real thing. He wouldn’t be able to press a key and—abracadabra—delete Mike.
He was probably needlessly worrying. Professional concerns would dominate and there wouldn’t be time to give ex-inspector Michael Angells more than a quick hello and a passing thought. And, being the sensible man that he was, Nick picked up the folder marked Warbridge and re-read the chief’s background information.
About the Author
I’m married, I’ve grown-up children, I’m asexual (although a different sort of ace from Nick) and I do enjoy writing stories that aren’t constrained by hetero-norms.
The plots are always stimulated by something on the news – in this instance, reading that, in 2020, organ donation will become the default position where I live and, also, reading that enforced organ harvesting is carried out in some countries. I enjoy writing funny dialogue as well as dealing with serious issues, though, and I hope that some of the quad’s interchanges will make readers smile. And regarding the extract, I didn’t know the meaning of ‘proctology’ when I saw the word in a review of Book 3! (The term ‘colorectal’ is more common in the UK.) I couldn’t resist including a reference to it.
The plots are always stimulated by something on the news – in this instance, reading that, in 2020, organ donation will become the default position where I live and, also, reading that enforced organ harvesting is carried out in some countries. I enjoy writing funny dialogue as well as dealing with serious issues, though, and I hope that some of the quad’s interchanges will make readers smile. And regarding the extract, I didn’t know the meaning of ‘proctology’ when I saw the word in a review of Book 3! (The term ‘colorectal’ is more common in the UK.) I couldn’t resist including a reference to it.
YouTube link to audio version of the short asexual/ sexual story Scar Ghyll Levels – available on Amazon Kindle.
(Audio version contains 200 photos of scenery)
https://youtu.be/M6xSuQ9utWg
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