LEV A.C. ROSEN'S PAGE: THE DISASTER GAY DETECTIVE AGENCY & EVANDER MILLS P.I. SERIES #1, #4

THE DISASTER GAY DETECTIVE AGENCY
LEV A.C. ROSEN
Poisoned Pen Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: From award—winning, critically acclaimed crime writer Lev Rosen comes a punchy, hilarious mystery—thriller. Meet the disaster gays: They're messy. They're queer. And they're about to solve a murder… Or die trying.

Brandon is a hopeless romantic. So when a handsome stranger named Jon checks in at the hotel he works at and invites Brandon to his room, Brandon ignores the advice of his crew—a group of loveable and messy queer twenty—somethings—and accepts. What follows is a tale as old as time: they hook up, Jon promises to text, Brandon falls in love, and Jon ghosts. Case closed—or is it?

When Jon checks out early, leaving behind a bag of belongings and his cellphone, Brandon takes the phone and sets out to find him, thinking that this must at last be his Cinderella story.

But he gets more than he bargained for when he witnesses a murder—and sees Jon fleeing the scene.

Determined (and not in over their heads whatsoever), Brandon, Ollie, Nicole, and Ian decide to solve the mystery of the murder and uncover Jon's true identity…they just have to figure it out before a target falls on their own backs.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Those heady first friendships, the ones you really learn how to adult by forming and inhabiting...they're deep and they're still important to older you because you are formed by them for better and worse.

Here we are among Brandon, Ollie, Nicole, and Ian as they navigate the first changes in the structures that supported them. It's usually a significant other arriving or one departing. Most of us have been through that.

Few of us have had a potential love discovered in what looks like a guilty act at what certainly is a murder scene, like Brandon.

What ensues is the scoobygroup all pitching in to resolve Brandon's maybeboyfriend's involvement (if any) in the murder he was seen running away from the scene of. Naturally this means they need to solve the murder. A lot like Dame Agatha's Five Little Pigs we're treated to the scoobygroup's individual PoVs on the investigation and on the unfolding issue of who it is Brandon's found himself to fall for. I think the technique is one that works or fails on your readerly taste for the writing style. Author Lev uses a solidly comedic register throughout the story, giving the different scoobygoupers reasonably distinctive voices and just enough difference in what they see to keep me focused.

I don't want to tell you there's a rom-com vibe to the proceedings because that suggests the group will be all matched up by the end of the story. It's not like that, though the bantering suggests it will be in the formula of rom-com. I was partly glad that it didn't end up in the predictable couplings. It certainly would've been...forced...unless they found partners outside the scoobygroup.

All said, I was pretty convinced this was really a screenplay made novel-like because Author Lev's a well-established force at Poisoned Pen Press. It was almost obtrusive how filmable, how designed for visual scenes, this story is. I'm not saying that as a knock, I found myself reading happily along with the movie playing in my mental Grauman's Egyptian Theater in 70mm CinemaScope. It was a hoot!

I can't quite attach a full fifth star. I felt the reality, the full gravity, of the events the scoobygroup uncovered really sat uneasily with the narrative technique. Still, four and a quarter stars for the chaotic energy of the story, the sheer verve of the cast for their different roles and discoveries as the truth and the facts begin to converge...it was immersive to me, will feel like the spin cycle of your washing machine for others.

I expect we'll see more from the Disaster Gays. I'll be there.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

LAVENDER HOUSE (Evander Mills #1)
LEV A.C. ROSEN
Forge Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen's Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.

Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret—but it's not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they've needed to keep others out. And now they're worried they're keeping a murderer in.

Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept—his calendar is wide open. And his secret is the kind of secret the Lamontaines understand.

Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He's seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn't extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death is only the beginning.

When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First in a new series of gay-led private-eye mysteries. Set in 1952 San Francisco, borning and burgeoning gay Mecca on the cusp of the Lavender Scare that was the less-famous shadow of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare, the story concerns a murder within the quiet confines of rich queers. Queerness has always been more or less tolerated among the wealthy...Peter Thiel and Sam Altman aren't being shouted about on the screamy white guys channel, faggots though they are...whereas guys like our sleuth have to live with police harassment and the possibility of ghastly consequences for one's life if outed.

As is always the case in a mystery series, I recommend starting here at book one to get the foundational ethos of the sleuth...in this case Evander Mills, called Andy, a private investigator whose specialty will become among the queer community he once helped to oppress. These are taxpayers who cannot expect helpful, effective action on their problems from the police. Andy becomes a discreet and effective investigator. This time his talents are required by the wealthy and privileged, who *still* can't reliably command the services of police without facing ugliness. Andy's never been in that world before. He's dazzled by it...he's coming to terms with how people like he once was have perpetuated a cruelty they've inflicted as much as received.

Andy's learning how much his skills are needed among those who he honed them against. The emotional heart of the novel is his coming to terms with his own awful past, his awful actions, and what he can do as an adult (emotionally speaking) to help people who can't expect it if they're honest and truthful about themselves.

It's a story I thoroughly enjoyed, told in a voice I resonated well with, about people who belonged to a generation I had family among. I'll pursue the series with the zeal of a vice cop.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MIRAGE CITY (Evander Mills #4)
LEV A.C. ROSEN
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Lev AC Rosen delivers a new and captivating 1950s mystery in this dazzling, award-winning series

Private Investigator Evander “Andy” Mills’ next case takes him out of his comfort zone in San Francisco—and much to his dismay, back home to Los Angeles. After a secretive queer rights organization called the Mattachine Society enlists Andy to find some missing members, he must dodge not only motorcycle gangs and mysterious forces, but his own mother, too.

Avoiding her proves to be a challenge when the case leads Andy to the psychological clinic she works at. Worlds collide, buried secrets are dug up, and Andy realizes he’s going to have to burn it all down this time if he wants to pull off a rescue. With secret societies, drugs, and doctors swirling around him, time is running out for Andy to locate the missing and get them to safety. And for him to make it back to San Francisco in one piece.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: In the time of the Lavender Scare, there was an equal and opposite reaction from the Mattachine Society among mostly gay men and the Daughters of Bilitis among lesbians. These brave souls were fighting for recognition that is now under threat...queers are just plain ol' people, entitled by their basic common humanity to equal access to civilization's resources. Laws are applied unequally in most of the world but aggressively so among queer folk. These early rights-seekers were incredibly brave, very effective, and thus targeted.

Enter Andy Mills to a missing persons case among these pioneering souls. Investigating the possible crime(s) Andy discovers things most extraordinarily awful happening to queer people simply because they were guilty of being Other. It was a time where moral panic among high-control lunatics was at fever pitch. At this same moment the Comics Code Authority was established along the lines of the Hays Code for the movies to forestall the government imposing censorship. This also neatly sidestepped the remedy of suing the government for unconstitutional infringement of free-speech rights, ensuring the abusive restrictions on representing queer people positively could continue.

Andy's case takes him deep into the consequences of this system's probably intended consequences. It was tough to read at times. It was worse to live, as is always the case in rougher-edged fiction. Shifting Andy's field of action, however reluctant he was to do so, to LA from San Francisco, allowed me to see him wrong-footed, still determined, and ultimately successful in resolving the case. How, I won't say because the Spoiler Stasi always lurk in readiness to shout their unhappiness at your disobedience to their iron whims.

It's book four in a series I've only read book one of, yet I got the development of Andy's character that's continued on the trajectory set in the first book. It would've been an even richer experience had I read two and three, but I'll get back to them soon enough. This series combines gay history's dark corners and one man's coming into his queerness more and more in an effective mélange of meddlesome meanness combatively counteracted.