Dirty Work - TA Moore

Dirty Work is a down and dirty start to a new series, full of action. It's a small town criminal intrigue which brings together an intelligent hometown boy and an ex-military crime boss. Bullets and sparks fly while everyone is trying to survive when the mafia comes to town.

From the blurb:

Crime Scene Cleaner [kraɪm siːnˈkliːnə] - Cleans up crime scenes…before the cops know there is one.

People always say ‘you can’t go home again’. It turns out that doesn’t count as a guarantee…especially not during a global pandemic.

After the jobs in LA started to dry up, crime scene cleaner Grade Pulaski was forced to pack up and move home. He loves his family, but the last thing he ever wanted was to face the ghosts he’d left back in Sweeny, Kentucky.

Also, the place just sucks.

He certainly isn’t going to stay any longer than necessary. The plan is to save up enough money to move back to LA and give his business a kick-start. The problem is that, as previously mentioned, Sweeny’s a hole and the locals are anything but professional.

Now a body has gone missing, Grade’s reputation is being held hostage, and people keep asking whether his Dad really did run off with 100 grand of meth in the back of Dodge. Plus, even though you shouldn’t sleep with your employers, crime lord Clay Traynor is exactly the sort of bad idea that Grade can’t resist. Tattooed, bad news, and dangerous.

…oh, yeah. Grade’s job is to clean up the crime scene before the cops know someone’s dead. That’s why he needs to sort this out before he gets a bad review on dark net Yelp.

Dirty Work is the first in  Dirty Deeds series and is a slow burn. 

SNik's Review:

There is no moral ambivalence to these main characters, 

Grade disposes of bodies and evidence for a price, and Clay is a local crime boss that has no problem hurting and killing people that oppose him. Grade’s trying to make money to flee his hometown of Sweeny, Kentucky, (for the second time) but his current job is not going smoothly when he has loses the body he was meant to dispose of. Grade has to find the body quickly before the bad guys or the cops find it first, and under the watchful eye of Clay, the action, intrigue, and body count start to add up.

 There is very little background given on Grade and Clay, only small glimpses into their past, so there are unexpected twists and turns and revelations as they deal with the problem of the missing body with intelligence and violence. 

Entertaining story that it is, the slow build up to start the Dirty Deeds series as the story leaves you asking for more, more conversations between Grade and Clay, more information on their individual histories, and more steamy interactions that demonstrate their attraction and possibly form a relationship. Dirty Work is a fast and fun read and I am attempting to wait patiently for the next installment.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Red's Book Reads Review:

This book was really not what I expected! 

Grade is a crime scene cleaner and he is the one you call when you don’t want the police to find out there was a crime scene. I loved the dedication to his job here and how detailed the descriptions were. Clay is tattooed criminal who seems unfazed by most things and is tasked with helping Grade when he has to find the missing body.

I have mixed feelings on this book. I loved the concept and also how while the book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, there is clearly more to come for these two. Clay is a bit of an odd one and I’m sure future books will cover off more about the military history we get glimpses of throughout the book. On the whole this was a good book and a really clever story but I think there is just something about it that didn’t quite click for me - although that could just be personal preference. 

Rating: 4 Stars

Dirty Work is currently available in e-book format.

You can also check out a short prequel and enter to win a $10 Amazon GC by checking out our Release Blitz post by clicking on the graphic below: