The Losing Game by Lane Swift
Review by Lauren
source: copy from The Dreamspinner Press; all opinions are my own
Official Summary: Winchester Crown Court, October 2035: Richard Shaw leaves, a free man.
Grief-stricken and angry, Lucas Green is hell-bent on revenge against Richard Shaw, who killed his sister. Lucas has heard of a man who can help—the handsome and urbane owner of a boutique sex shop with a head for planning crimes. But Dante Okoro has a past he’s desperate to keep buried. Though Lucas piques his interest in more ways than one, Dante turns him away. Still, he wonders if he made the right decision….
An unexpected death brings Dante and Lucas together once more. This time they can’t ignore the chemistry between them. But courting a lover with lies is a dangerous game. Dante has been spying on Lucas, convinced he has plans to kill Shaw. Lucas has been spying on Shaw, waiting for the right moment to strike. If Dante admits his suspicions to Lucas, he’ll surely lose him. If he doesn’t, Lucas might do something reckless—and end up losing everything.
Review: I definitely thought The Losing Game would be more exciting and suspenseful than it ended up. It's not a bad book, per se, but if I was going to choose a rating, I'd go with a 3 or 3.5. I'd be curious to see what else Lane Swift has written or will written, but this one just didn't really work for me.
For one thing, it takes place a bit in the future and I could never really figure out why. It just didn't seem necessary, and unless I was missing some key aspects of the book, I think it would have been just fine set in the present day. I suppose this isn't a huge deal, but I suppose I thought it would play more of a part.
The aspect that I felt would be more suspenseful is Lucas Green wanting to kill Richard Shaw for hitting his sister on a bike, while he was drunk, and not really getting into trouble for it. He wants to kill Richard, make him pay. He's lost in grief and when he gets pointed in Dante's direction, he's hoping that Dante can plan him the murder so that he won't be caught in the end. While Lucas keeps trying to plan a way to get back at Richard, and Dante finds himself wanting to do more to help Lucas, it never really felt like the stakes were that high. I suppose I just wasn't that invested in the outcome of the story, so that was a bit of a let down. I wanted things to be more exciting!
Finally, there is tentative romantic relationship between Lucas and Dante. We all know it's going to happen, but again, it didn't entirely work for me. I liked the two of them together, but Dante does some things that definitely would have made me pause more than Lucas. However, I did really love Dante's relationship with his two adopted daughters! It was obvious how much he cared for them and the story of how they all ended up together was heartbreaking, yet beautiful.
Overall, not bad, but nothing that I'd want to read again.
