As a cop, Mike Angalls prides himself on his stalwart fidelity to the rules. It’s as much his identity as it is what makes him an excellent detective. Unofficially, his sterling record and the fact that he is gay has made Mike somewhat untouchable. No one on the force can impugn his impeccable results and the force can claim they are inclusive. But it’s not without struggles on both sides.

For one thing, Mike isn’t just gay, he’s polyamorous. For another, not everyone on the force is as accepting of Mike’s four-way relationship. Neither Mike nor his colleagues ever expected Mike’s lovelife to interfere with a case. That, however, is exactly what happens when Mike’s precinct finds itself in charge of investigating the death of a minor league soccer player. Mike gets the honors of running the investigation and that dubious distinction is entirely because the deceased was found in a gay bar. Mike questions the prime suspect, who also happens to be the secret lover of the deceased, but the suspect’s father makes the case devastatingly personal when he threatens the lover with whom Mike shares a special bond, even among his other lovers.

Caught between doing the right thing—treating this case with the same clinical detachment and drive as any other—and sacrificing his deepest professional morals in the name of love, Mike has some hard choices to make. No matter what he chooses, he stands to lose. The question really is where his loyalties really lie.

I chose this story because I’m interested in understanding how relationships with more than two romantic partners are portrayed. To date, I can only recall one other book that focused on a trio of men, and that felt more like a pair of lovers with an a third wheel thrown in by mutual agreement. In Badge of Loyalty, I feel like I had a more rounded view of a polyamorous relationship. Trusswell goes out of their way to try portraying the effect and reality of this relationship and its impact on the various members by including snippets of narration from Mike’s lovers’ perspectives. In that regard, I think the book was a great success. For the record, it was clearly established that Mike and Ross are more of a traditional couple—Mike himself admits that while he loves all his men, it is Ross he could not live without.

Mike Angells definitely comes across as the alpha of the relationship, though whether by design or happenstance, I can’t tell. He is the only one of the four men for whom Tresswell provides a well-rounded and consistent on-page presence. Ross the art aficionado, Phil the doctor, and Raith the artist, are largely shown through the lens of their relationship to Mike. Most chapters start or end with a snippet from a lover’s POV. These narrations seemed to discuss things largely in terms of how the narrating person “fit” with Mike. The main part of the chapters is then told in third person narrative and largely about Mike’s work as a detective. Mike’s romantic relationships with each of them feel somewhat substantiated and everyone seems satisfied with their polyamory, however, it also unfortunately reinforces the idea of pairs among the four, but where Mike is almost always one half of the pair. Because the main action focuses so exclusively on Mike’s professional life, I couldn’t help but think Tresswell has put Mike the character on a pedestal. This story is his story more than a real exploration of polyamory. It wasn’t off putting necessarily, but it was disappointing for me since I was specifically drawn to the polyamory aspect.

The story itself started off poorly mechanically speaking. I was not prepared for the multiple narrators. The overall effect felt very disjointed for the first several chapters. I didn’t know who was who or why I should care until I was maybe a third of the way through the book. It’s also worth noting that Trusswell makes extensive use of acronyms, but fails to disambiguate them. Alphabet soup made the main police storyline near indecipherable. Maybe if you watch a lot of British crime drama, these all make sense, but I could not parse 75% of the acronyms—were they titles for jobs or sections within the police department or verbal shorthand for common procedures? This was very nearly my first DNF because I had no idea what was going on.

Eventually, I had to go back to the official blurb to figure out what was even happening. Normally, I don’t have to or even like to “prep” myself before reading—the plot, characters, location, etc., are usually easy enough to make things clear. While reading, it is important to note that each of Mike’s lovers either starts or ends a chapter with first person narration about their relationship with Mike. Often, they reflect on how they met Mike or how they handle being in a relationship with Mike. On the down side, this means you jump around a lot in time and place. Once you get used to it, these are enjoyable little bits. Another thing they do, and it gets especially noticeable towards the end of the book, is foreshadow events to come. These hints at the future were as tantalizing as they were nerve racking. The foreshadowing did serve one more very important function for me: they helped build up events so they did not come across as happening purely because the author wanted them to.

Given the care shown in planning certain climactic scenes, I cannot understand why Trusswell does two specific things to the characters. One: if there is one clear message about how this relationship works, it’s that everything comes down to communication. However, we virtually never see any combination of this foursome actually talk about their relationship. Not when Mike has sex with the absolute worst person at the absolute worst time, not when Ross reveals a skeleton long buried in his closet, not when one of the four crosses what had been a “line in the sand” with regards to the foursome’s sexual practices. This was a huge disappointment for me. Two: that sex on the side that Mike has just screamed “the author wanted this to happen” and it pissed me off, given the lip service paid to the idea that Mike and his partners could be happily exclusive to each other.

Overall, this was a technically interesting book. I was mostly glad I stuck with it and when Mike makes his choice—loyalty to the force or to his lover (and yeah, it’s odd that this is a singular lover)—I was genuinely wrapped up in the story. It gave me the wherewithal to finish, even though my interest diminished again somewhat. I don’t feel like this was a gratuitous polyamorous story, but I also don’t think the main purpose Truswell is going for is addressing or exploring polyamory. It’s a story about a hardnose cop who happens to have multiple committed relationships. If that sounds appealing and you enjoy stories that highlight police work (and don’t mind the acronyms), you’d enjoy this book.

I'm in two minds about this book, not sure if it is a police investigation novel or a gay relationship novel. Neither stands out as being correct and as such it is disappointing.

The writing is ok, the characters interesting, it is the structure of the story that brings it down.

Full review to come.
I deeply apologize, but life is a handful lately and I'm using all my free time to read, not review. I hope everybody understands.
(i have a friend who's dying to read this one special now lol)

2.5 stars

While I REALLY enjoyed the writing, I have some SERIOUS problems with the story and the demeanour of some characters - to put it mildly, I was very much PISSED OFF , so that I HONESTLY was at least 2 times VERY closed to DNF it. Let me tell, there are four BIG issues for me in this novel I just CAN'T ignore.

1. Mike Angells. Angel Baby. Cock of the walk. I honestly doubt that such polyamorous relationship that the author describes could work for a life time, most likely the chance it could even exist at all is basically zero, but no harm in dreaming, right? We talk here about 5 partners. (FIVE!!!)


There are easier tasks than making a polyamorous lifestyle work. It works for us because we work at it. [Phil]


Sorry, Phill, it doesn't work. And Angel Baby demonstrated it. So why not just to name it an open relationship? What all these efforts in a performance of different POVs for? Why not just to show Mike and his long-term partner Ross living together and picture Mike as a slut and Ross as a loyal sweetheart who understands the needs of his over-testosteroned lover? (Considering the fact that Mike is an everyone lover in this relationship, but not every one in this relationship has a sexual intercourse with the rest of the family.) But it is not SOLELY infidelity. The worst is HIM as ONE OF THE BEST DETECTIVES being unprofessional. In MANY aspects in regard of THIS case.

2.Ross. I found him very likeable. Before his very dark secret-bomb exploded. WTF. No, I didn't buy his cheap unconvincing explanation about his NOT KNOWING about the age of his lover in the past. The brother of the lover was his roommate, FGS. Why he didn't care about what happened in front of him, I don't know. I needed a better explanation.

3.Raith. I dislike/don't accept his prison's phase. One doesn't form his sexuality in prison.

4.Flaxby. This beating action...a NO-Go-Area.



I REALLY would like to read a NORMAL mystery novel by the author WITHOUT her performance of a polygamous relationship. Her writing style has the potential to become a bestseller.

This work had so many wonderful things going for it. It takes on the subject of a polygamous relationship of four men, rarely seen in the literature. It is treated with relevance and dignity, not in a homoerotic sense, but in a caring and intelligent way. The narrative from each of the characters perspective is well written. The mystery within is complex. And finally, the story of the gay character in a very straight occupation points out the underlying nature of homophobia in the workplace.

However, at some point, I believe authors have to move on from the LGBT character as flawed. Unfortunately, Tresswell gives into this.

The warning in Goodreads regarding Strong Adult Content is deceiving. It is not.

Thank you Net Gallery and the publisher for this ebook.

I dnf'd when Ross revealed his secret but foolishly skimmed to the end. I wish I hadn't. The ending was horrible.
To be honest I struggled with the writing style. It was very detached where Mike and the police work were involved with occasional interjections in the pov of the 3 men in Mike's life. These were more intimate but it wasn't enough. I couldn't understand what any of these men saw in Mike because the author never took the time to truly show any of the relationships. Certainly not in the first half of the book that I read, and by that time I'd expect to be invested in the MCs.
Not only was the book all over the place in terms of pov but the narrative jumped back and forth in time too.

Well written polyamory book. Crime and 4 guys! I liked all 4 characters, all individuals. It’s hard for me to get into poly books but I must say the author did a great job of making this a realistic story.

I’m a sucker for a crime book and I really did enjoy all aspects of this book.

I would recommend this to friends.
Waiting excitedly for the next book.

A lot going on but fine once I settled into it. Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

To tell her story, Tresswell uses a kind of voiceover interspersed with direct personal touches from the people revolving around the main character Mike. This creates a kind of duality, the voice over made me feel like I'm above, watching the story play out with a touch of foreboding. The personal bits creates more intimacy, personal touches, a need to know more. So on the whole I think Tresswell's method worked well for me. Her exploration into polyamory feels authentic as it feels like it is not created to please but rather to bit by bit explore the good and the difficulties parts which all relationships have. I always imagine that polyamory has more 'problems' than a duo but thinking/reading about it allows me to see that it might have advantages as well as difficulties and the results as in a duo relationship all boil down to how much work/commitment is put in.

I am looking forward to reading the sequel which is coming out soon.

Well put together polygamy romance slash crime story. Four men, a crime and big decisions to make. Will it be the badge or the tattoo.

Somewhat sweet relationships and a lot of observations and thinking. The crime within was good woven. I loved it how the revenge was put down and how it ended.
All four had their own characters and were their own individual... their dynamic was good.
This story is not entirely my thing but the writing was really well and clear done.

Kindly received an arc from the publisher

This was a lovely read. I enjoyed it although I had a hard time deciphering the language. I didn't mind so much as it helped keep me focused on the read. I don't want to give too much away but there are so many twists and turns and this is not a typical love story!

I really don’t know what to say about this one. Four men in a relationship, each with their own issues but bound together through effort and affection. For me the story felt very factual, as if someone was reading an essay. There’s lighthearted parts but for the most it’s serious. Once I got to grips with what was happening, everything flowed smoothly down a bumpy path. I’d say the story focuses on all four of them equally but not all four of them together. Raith the artist, Phil, Mike the cop and his chosen partner Ross. I did like the tattoos and how much emotion the characters give off. Didn’t like Fortune or Peri. This story left me reeling when I was done oh and does deal with dark issues.