The Cardigans is Episode 1 of season 1 of Criminal Intentions. It is a fast-paced detective thriller with the briefest of glimpses into a potential slow-burn romance, and it is structured like a television series, hence the episode 1 season 1 description. The story, setting, and characters Cole McCade gives us in this first instalment are gritty, gory, fast-paced, multilayered, fun, and diverse! Both MCs are queer men of colour. There is a non binary character that uses they/them/their pronouns, and the crime plot itself dealt with queerness.

I don't want to go into any details surrounding the actual plot as going in as blind as you can will give you the best experience of this story as you are taken along with Detectives Khalaji (Malcolm) & Yoon (Seong-Jae) as they try to solve a recent string of murders. The story kept my interest throughout. It kept moving forward and really did feel like an episode of something like CSI. I loved both Seong-Jae & Malcom, and there is clearly more to both of them and their pasts than we are given in this book, and the tension and chemistry between them was great. I'm really looking forward to discovering more as this series goes on and seeing if that tension turns into more.

Book 1 was available in the Audible Plus catalogue and narrated by Curt Bonnem, who did a fantastic job with all characters, differentiating his voice well. This is full of action, intriguing characters, and a fast-paced mystery that will keep your interest throughout. The only reason this doesn't get a full five-star from me is because I figured out Whodunit before the big reveal... but that's just how my neurodivergent brain works, and it is rare for books like this to surprise me in that way. I highly recommend giving this a try, and I will, without doubt, be reading book 2 sooner rather than later.

"When looking across the horizon, the world had a way of expanding, broadening beyond the tight narrow confines of the little boxes of pain humans tended to wall themselves into."