Reviews : Variable Onset by Layla Reyne

To catch a serial killer, shy teacher must go undercover and play pretend husbands with the former student he has a crush on in Variable Onset by Layla Reyne.

Special Agent Lincoln Monroe gave up being in the field so he could raise his daughter and train new FBI agents. Some of those students are quite a bit of trouble for this shy, argyle-wearing teacher. The most headache-inducing one was Carter, a student when he first started teaching. A student he had to resist crushing on.

Now, eight years later, Lincoln must return to the field to go undercover and catch a serial killer. When he arrives at the little college town near Roanoke, he finds none other than Carter, his former student and new partner. In all senses of the word, because Carter's plan for their identities is that the two are newlyweds.

Role-playing husbands is all fine and dandy until the pair start getting confused on whether they are still playing pretend and bodies start falling around them. Time is running out and the killer has them in his sights.

Variable Onset is a coworkers, hot for teacher, fake married, forced proximity, opposites attract romantic mystery featuring a shy, introverted teacher and his brash, outgoing former student. It features lots of crushing, a slow burn, and many interesting characters filling up a small town where everyone is a suspect.

Lincoln is very sweet and awkward. The women in his life: his teenage daughter, his ex-wife, and his sister, are all a bit bossy, but he wouldn't have it any other way. He didn't mind getting out of the field as he never felt confident in his people skills, and stepping back out there leaves him nervous even before finding out that Carter is his new partner. He's a bit older, likes argyle and chucks, was a bit of a musical prodigy, and is an expert in forensic genealogy. He's also terrified of fire and being on stage.

Getting called to the principal’s office sucked at forty-two same as it did at fourteen. Sucked even worse when you were the teacher. Standing in front of a room full of agent trainees, Lincoln suppressed his physical reaction to the gray-haired man who’d snuck into the back of his lecture hall. His mind, though, wasn’t so easily wrangled. What had he done now to get on Director Beverley’s shitlist? Missed another useless meeting? Marched in that protest last weekend? Brought his daughter to the crime lab for take-your-kid-to-work day

Carter had a crush on Lincoln when he was in his class, and he's never quite gotten over it. In the years since he's gone undercover more than a few times and is good at following his gut instincts. He was already in the town investigating his own, personal history. Growing up in foster care, Carter has no idea who his parents were, but believes they might have died in a car accident when he was a baby. Carter seems sure of himself as he directs things around him, but underneath he's not quite as confident as he appears, and not knowing who is family was leaves him not knowing who he is.

Why did Lincoln Monroe have to be so fucking hot?

That had been Carter’s first thought the day he’d stepped into the prickly professor’s lecture hall, and eight years later, it had been his first thought opening the front door to him. His next thought... Lincoln Monroe had actually gotten hotter.

The small town Lincoln and Carter must infiltrate is a college town set back from a highway. It's close enough to DC to be a good weekend trip, but far enough away to be more trees and forest than city. It is houses a college, and when school is not in session it is mostly populated by residents who have lived there their entire lives. It's also home to two serial killers, one a longtime murderer, Dr. Fear, and the other a newer copycat who is pissing him off.

The town has a lot of characters, everyone from the HOA welcoming committee / busybody and her wife; to Larry, his brother Barry, and their other brother Harry. The college brings in some oddballs too, and some decide to stay. Carter feels at home in the town, and Lincoln thinks it's fun.

He’d seen his fair share of characters at Quantico, but this town was like the kooky-sitcom gift that kept on giving. Its current present, a suspender-wearing student hipster.

Throughout the story though, Lincoln and Carter must question if everyone is as they appear. There are two different serial killers hidden among the gregarious bunch, so anyone could be hiding a darker side.

Lincoln has been studying Dr. Fear for years. The serial killer kidnaps couples, then tortures and eventually kills them by using their own fears, whether claustrophobia, pyrophobia, or even fear of failure. This new copycat has kidnapped Lincoln's friend and mentor's daughter, and time is running out on finding her before she is killed. They are hoping to also catch Dr. Fear as this is the first time they've ever gotten close to him.

The plot is good, though has some holes. Some things didn't make a lot of sense or were missing logical conclusions. There were also a few leaps of logic; if A, then K, sort of things. Carter knew to look in the town for his parents' accident instead of Texas where he went into the system because someone, somewhere told him to, but where did that person get that idea?

Also, I understand that many of the town's residents have prematurely gray hair and Crohn's Disease because of the small gene pool, so the murder(s) must be descended from town founders, but they made quite a leap when they decided the killer(s) must have gray hair. Why did it have to be a prematurely gray-haired resident, and wouldn't Dr. Fear be old enough to have naturally gray hair by then or did he start killing really early?

“Dr. Fear leaves no evidence, right? So, per your lessons, we have to use archival data and documents, our own observational skills, and the one clue we do have, to identify likely avenues of investigation. All we know at this point is that they’re likely someone who lived or worked in Apex through the span of Dr. Fear’s cycles.”

“Which, one, is too big a suspect pool, and two, Jeremiah’s too young.”

“But maybe not someone from his family. He tell you he was from here?”

Lincoln nodded. “Family goes multiple generations back.”

“Right, so normally it’d be tough to test for genetic relevance in a college town, as a large segment of the population is always turning over due to the university, but the size of the actual permanent population in Apex is relatively small and, from what I gathered talking to folks last night and today, much of it is like Jeremiah’s family. They’ve been here for generations, and many of them have intermarried.”

Lincoln was nodding enthusiastically now. “Multi-generational founding families. That’s a much more manageable suspect pool and someone from one of those families is more likely to be stationary, here in Apex for the span of Dr. Fear’s cycles.” His brow furrowed and he drummed his fingers on the table. “Of course, there’s the possibility it’s someone on staff at Apex who has been here the entire time.”

“Granted,” Carter conceded. “We need to follow that lead as well. Dig deeper into the university records. But for this investigative avenue, if we assume Dr. Fear does belong to a founding family, who has been in this isolated area for multiple generations...” He held up the evidence bags, Jeremiah’s a little higher.

“Those families will have higher incidences of genetic mutations and other hereditary conditions. A founder variant.”

“A variant like premature graying, which would narrow the suspect pool even more. You were probably too nervous to notice, but at the party last night and the café this morning, there were multiple other baby silver foxes. Plus Jeremiah and Lydia—she can’t be that much older than me—and probably more in their families.”

I wondered the entire time if Carter's parents were the first victims of Dr. Fear. They never conclude why they crash and the entire aspect of Carter's family feels a bit tacked on. I wonder if maybe Dr. Fear accidentally crashed into them, killing them, and that was the start of his pattern. Then every ten years he struck again. Kinda makes sense. Though his age is never quite addressed, so I'm not sure how old he actually is and would he be at least 16 then since it was 32 years ago... He definitely murdered people 22 years ago and 12 years ago, so he's probably at least 40, but is he older?

The pacing is very off throughout. The undercover roles are set up within hours, even getting jobs and a house and furniture. In a small town. And no one noticed. The boys talk about hurrying and time running out to save the couple, but they don't actually rush very much, nor do they do more immediate things to solve the crime like look into the paint rub-off before looking into 20 year old records for a picture of a person next to another person. The story speeds up, then mellows out, then speeds up, then mellows out. The pacing on the dramatic capture scene is okay, but the very end scenes are just sort of weird and felt anticlimactic and un-romance novel.

There were a few, fairly suspenseful scenes. Good ones, though they could have been better. There were probably more suspenseful scenes than is normal for a book like this, which is nice if you like more mystery and suspense than the romance sections, though there were a bit of those as well.

The science is interesting and well-done. Forensic genealogy is important and is a cool plot concept. Trying to solve a crime using it would be frustrating but fulfilling. It really was my favorite part.

Lincoln and Carter are good too. Very human characters, without being jerks. Just natural nerves and uncertainty with their crush. The slowburn and lowkey falling for each other fits them. Also, they develop a bit over the story, not letting their fears stop them when it matters. The supporting characters are neat as well, especially the little peaks we get of Lincoln's family.

There is hardly any sex in the book, which to me was a bonus and more pages of story, but I know a lot of readers seem more interested in the sex scenes than the story itself. What there was was good. A lot of on edge, almost kiss scenes too, which is fun. 'I want you, but I shouldn't...'

The couple and the setting and the storyline made up for a lot of issues. They were just so likeable! The book wasn't the greatest, but it was a solid contender and worth reading.

This is a stand-alone novel. Layla Reyne does have other similar FBI suspense books though, including her Agents Irish & Whiskey series and the spinoff Trouble Brewing series