Revealing Annie (Police and Fire: Operation Alpha) by Freya BarkerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Sumo Gets An Insta-Family
I’d probably give this book 4.5 ⭐️ if I could.
This is the fifth book in a series about a group of colleagues. Each book can stand alone from the rest and be enjoyed as a solitary book, but the experience is much richer if the other books are read first. You will understand the characters more if you have seen them in previous books and how they interact with their friends and colleagues.
Sumo is an EMT who is the joker in any situation. He likes to make people laugh as he finds it easier than trying to confront difficult emotions. He keeps a lot of himself hidden behind his smiling persona. He loves his job, and spending time with the fire crew he works with. He considers his female partner, Blue, to be his best friend and adores her baby daughter. He loves cooking and feeding his crew and dreams of a day when he can build a house on a mountain top. He is much more complex than people give him credit for.
Annie is hiding in plain sight. She has short neat hair, short unpolished nails, no makeup and huge unflattering glasses. She works in a bakery, usually behind the scenes creating sweet treats for other people to enjoy. She lives in a one-bedroom trailer in a park with an elderly person on each side of her. She helps one of them, Edward, with his dog when his arthritis means he can’t walk very far. She also does other things for him when she can persuade him to let her. He’s a curmudgeon but she still likes to help him. She also volunteers at the animal shelter to get her doggy fix and does yoga to keep fit. She’s only been in Durango for around a year and she has a nice safe predictable life, where no one really sees her or knows her.
When Blue introduces the two of them Sumo is very interested and starts to pursue her. She is slowly won over when all hell breaks loose. Sumo suddenly has a teenaged son he didn’t know he had, dumped on him and Annie’s old stalker re-emerges. They each leap into action to help the other and start to tighten their bond.
I’ve been motoring through this series because I find the characters so engaging. They all are around 40 or so and have well-established careers and are only just finding love at a later stage in life. They are all so incredibly supportive and loyal but at the same time spare no sympathy when getting the opportunity to laugh at each other. It’s like a very large extended family between the fire, EMT and police departments where everyone knows each other’s business.
On top of those qualities this book, like all the others from this series, is really well written. The plot is paced beautifully and the whodunnit aspect left me puzzled to the end. The characters are developed with lots of backstory and the emotional aspects of the book are very satisfying.
Basically, it’s a great book in a very good series and I’m off to download the next one right now!
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