Reading Room 2019 III: Transport Cafe by Elizabeth Holden (Fajrdrako)

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

Transport Cafe by Elizabeth Holden (fajrdrako) (now updated and complete at AO3!) has all of the best that a Bodie and Doyle story can have, while avoiding any of the faults! It captures Bodie and Doyle beautifully, painting them with exactly the right amount of heat, grit, and humor. And, it does all this in a relatively short package. There is a lot to love! Let me enumerate the ways while hopefully keeping this shorter than the story itself...

For me, the heart of any story comes down to how Bodie and Doyle interact - how they feel about each other, how they treat each other, how they move together, how they communicate; This story serves a splendid feast. Everything is set within the frame of the transport cafe experience - gritty, dark, contained, but semi-comedic, with a chorus of side characters. (Do we maybe identify with them? I know *I* would be staring at them like gods incarnate! but I need to color my hair green.) Within this stop at the transport cafe, we flash back to five days of an op from hell. The case is painted with deft strokes, just enough detail to feel real and dark, but limited enough that it flies - we can feel the way it drags for them, while it flies for us. It's the two of them doing their perfectly paired act, no need to talk, working in tandem, prowling together, pushing each other.

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