Red Hot Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 1)

Detective Jake Daggers is not happy! He just got assigned a new partner - Detective Shay Steele. Not only is is Detective Steele half-Elf, she is female - the first female detective. Dagger and Steele have to learn how to work with each other while solving a high society murder that is way more complicated than it seems. Dagger would jump to conclusions only to have Steele pull him back to earth. But in the end, the murder is solved and the partners are starting to click. Will need to investigate this series further.

Jake Daggers is, as he describes himself in chapter one, paragraph six “six feet, three inches, and 220 pounds of sausage- and donut-fueled crime fighting brilliance.” The new partner that was forced upon him after his old partner retired is Shay Steele. Part elf, part green around the edges. Daggers’ words, not mine.Red Hot Steele is a fun take on the police procedural. I can’t quite describe it as noir. Daggers first person narrative tries to give it that feel, but it is really too humorous. Throw in some elves, goblins, trolls, other assorted non-human beings, a little magic and a lot of crime and you have the adventures of Daggers & Steele.I had a hard time pinpointing the world that Red Hot Steele takes place in. There are mages, though the use of magic does not seem to be prolific. There is no electricity and the internal combustion engine is non-existent. Blades are the only type of weapons that are available, but only the military is allowed to carry them. The cops carry truncheons. The language is very modern. Sexual roles are skewed away from equality, but to be fair, not clearly defined in this book. The location is made up, but the city is described in ways a modern city dweller could relate to. I finally decided to give up on classifying the world and take it at face value. A made up place in a made up world, but with enough similarities to my world so as to make this an easy-to-read book.Do you watch TV cop shows? Have you seen Castle? That is the show I kept thinking of as I read Red Hot Steele. Daggers and Steele = Castle and Beckett (the lead detectives). Quinto and Rodgers = Esposito and Ryan (they do the legwork). The dynamics between both sets of book partners is very similar to the TV partners. There is a precinct captain to dole out wisdom and a cool coroner to explain the icky stuff. And they like to drink coffee. Whether this similarities are on purpose or accidental, as a fan of the show, it works for me.Daggers is sexist. Not horribly sexist, and I think he is trainable, but Daggers’ first reaction to meeting his new partner was to send her for coffee. He calls her ‘Shay’, her first name, even though he thinks no self-respecting homicide detective goes by their first name. Or he calls her ‘elf girl’. Not that I would call that nickname sexist. Daggers like to make up nicknames for everyone. My favorite is Pants-free McGee.Daggers likes kolaches. A lot. I have a complaint about this kolache habit though. Daggers talks as though kolaches and donuts are the same thing (see my first sentence of this review). In my part of the world, donuts are fried and kolaches are baked. We would never confuse the two. Just had to get that out. Thanks for reading this paragraph.So far, I really haven’t said much about the plot. Bad guy commits a crime. Make that multiple bad guys commit multiple crimes. Detectives run (or ride in a rickshaw) all over town chasing clues. Several theories are put forth until one theory reigns supreme and the case is solved. I know, that makes it sound pretty simplistic and this case really is not simple at all. However, the approach to solving it is nothing new. Not that I was bothered by that. I really was into the characters, so following them on the hunt was what kept me reading this book.Since Red Hot Steele is told by Daggers, it is pretty Daggers-centric. I have a feeling it will take a few books to get to know Steele as well as we know Daggers by the end of book 1. Don’t get me wrong. Shay Steele is a critical character with lots of her own charm – like putting Daggers in his place. But Daggers has to get to know her better before the reader can. I do like how Steele is portrayed as young and experienced but still intelligent and with enough confidence to hold her own in the precinct.Daggers, as the narrator, is quite entertaining. His observations are informative and colorful. Jake Daggers’ humor alone makes Red Hot Steele a book to recommend!Originally posted at Whiskey With My Book.

Things here have been a little bit crazy as of late, so I haven’t had a lot of time to write.I have, however, had a lot of time to read. So, I grabbed up my tablet and looked through for something fun but different. The cover for this one caught my eye and it was on a promotion for $0.00 so I downloaded it.It’s a crack!This is a detective story that is playing with all of the tropes of a detective story while throwing in elements of fantasy. Apparently there is a movement towards fantasy-crime novels (something I didn’t know) and this was my first full dip into it.The plot is, pretty much, a standard NCIS, CSI, etc plot. Someone’s been murdered and Jake Daggers (our narrator) has to solve the mystery. Unfortunately (at least according to his perspective at first) he’s just had his long time partner replaced with a newbie fresh from the academy. To make matters worse, the newbie is a woman and an elf. So he has to deal with the newbie and a murder. Lots of fun.The plot is pretty much straight out of those style outlines, but that’s to make room for the characterization. Daggers is clearly the focus and it shows. He has a fantastic characterization and reading him is just like reading the old detective serials that used to be on the radio. I can hear Howard Duff’s Sam Spade as I read the novel and it’s fantastic. Daggers is not a fantastic role-model – some of his views and perceptions are out of that same era and it makes for him to be very much a throw back of the era. This is particularly true regarding his partner, Steele. And while his view of Steele changes over the course of the story and becomes somewhat better, that doesn’t happen for women in general. It’s a part of the character and the setting, so it makes for good characterization. Daggers has faults – lots of them (women just being one), but he is overall a likable character with a strong voice.Steele, his partner, does a fair job of standing up to him and its pretty obvious that the rest of his team (there are four total agents on Daggers’ task force) don’t share his archaic views. She even calls him out a few times but, unfortunately, they don’t stick. The rest of the team just let it pass, so it Daggers does come off as a bit of a bully that the reader is expected to excuse. For the most part, I am a forgiving reader and I am anticipating that this will change over the course of the series. It’s an easy place to have character growth and development and I cannot imagine that the author won’t take advantage of it.But back to the team. The team is interesting, though most of our experience is with Daggers and Steele (imagine that!). Steele gets some screen time and it becomes clear that she’s not going to take Daggers lying down – yet she sometimes lets things slide that make this inconsistent. It’s a significant flaw, and, again, I’m assuming the author is going to fix it eventually.The answer to the puzzle becomes a bit obvious as the novel gets close to then end, but its still a good solution and fun to reach. The ‘getting there is half the fun’ trope really holds sway through the novel, and the novel is a lot of fun to read.Despite the flaws of the story, this is a fun book to pick up and read if you enjoy shows like NCIS or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. For the price of free, you really have no excuse not to.Characters: 4.5 / 5Plot: 3.5 / 5Action: 4 / 5Value: 5 / 5Writing: 4 / 5Overall: 4.2 / 5

This story mainly centres around a Detective called Jake Daggers who is a hard headed but intelligent man who knows his job, and knows how to get results. His partner of many, many years retired early on in the story and Daggers is introduced to his new partner; a woman who is part part human, part elf, called Detective Shay Steele. They get off to a rocky start in this brilliant fantasy mystery. They are sent out to deal with a case involving a dead man who has been murdered, by the name of Reginald Powers. He is a dark elf and naturally many stereotypes are brought to the fore because dark elves have historically got a bad reputation in the fantasy world, and so their investigation begins. But all is not what is seems, and Daggers and Steele have a hard slog to discover who killed him, and why. Along the way they have some exciting and fun times as Daggers throws his weight around trying to get to the truth. The banter between them is great fun, as are the sassy responses that Steele shoots back at Daggers' quips and snarky remarks. I love the world building in this and the different species of beings that live in the city that Daggers and Steele work in. This story was a great start point for a really fun, and funny, mystery series. I definitely recommend it, as it is a really entertaining read.

I cannot recommend this book to lovers of fantasy and/or paranormal stories. I like murdermysteries, fantasy, paranormal and adventure books. After reading the blurb and then the samplerchapter, I thought this book would combine the first 3 genres. I was disappointed.Det. Daggers is partnered, at first reluctantly, with Det. Steele, a young female half-elf with psychic abilities.However, after describing her ears you wouldn't know she was not all human, and her rare psychic insightswere not that helpful. After the first rather amusing chapter with goblins, the humour and so-called funnyquips began to wear a little thin.There was another chapter fighting and arresting a gang of dwarves. There was mention of a half-troll and dark elvesand one character was a fire mage, though his powers were not demonstrated so I'm not sure what exactly he wassupposed to do. Other than that, there was no "fantasy" or paranormal in the story and you could have been readingthe usual police procedure book - except they used rickshaws instead of cars!The detectives spent some time drinking coffee or beer and eating when not trying to score points off each other.I'm sorry but I think this book tried to be a bit different, but for me it didn't work and I won't be reading any more inthe series. 2.5 stars.

I have never read this sort of book before. I am unlikely to do so again.If this was set in a real time that I could relate to. I may have liked it? The Daggers character, was like something from the 1970’s. Getting the job done. The way he knows and not following the guidelines. Nothing wrong with that.But, wherever this place and time was? It was never explained.In a nutshell. Experienced detective Jake Daggers is partnered with a younger female cop. Despite his reservations Shay Steele, a half elf. More than proves herself.

This is a good detective story.However I nearly made a huge mistake by giving up on this book, because the lead character seems sexist, racist, etc. But it turns out that his character is more nuanced, although it takes quite a while for that to become clear.By the end, it was clear that through some rather dark humour and tongue in cheek attitudes the author is poking fun at all forms of discrimination and macho posturing. I am glad that I decided to persevere and read the whole book.I don't read many books where humour is a central part of the storytelling, but I will be reading more of this series.

I can see why some people didn't get on with this novel, but I actually enjoyed it. The story plays out like an old school crime noir-esque detective plot. With the lead character being a hard, worn, tough and sarcastic detective who is sceptical about everything and everyone. He drinks, over eats and gets rough its funny. Kind of like if naked gun was set in a fae/New York city style world. I did struggle to comprehend what the time setting was...not clear...but it was made clear the characters were fae creatures and not humans. Fun story with comedic narration from detective daggers.