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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

MORRIS KIGHT, Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay rights and Gay Wrongs, important story about unjustly neglected pioneer

Book cover photo credit: Henning von Berg
MORRIS KIGHT, Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay rights and Gay Wrongs
MARY ANN CHERRY
Process (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$22.95 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Morris Kight fought for gay rights the only way he knew how—outrageously

New York and San Francisco gay liberation activists’ work is well documented but allow us to introduce Los Angeles' preeminent gay rights pioneer—say hello to Morris Kight. His activist work began in the 1930s as a teenager. As the only male living in his mother’s Texas brothel, he secretly helped women working there get vital healthcare.

During the 1950s, he was part of an underground network of gay ‘safe houses’ that provided bail, health care, and legal advice at a time when the United States had laws criminalizing same-sex relationships. He turned his unique charisma and organizing skills to the 1960s anti-war movement and then working the rest of his life in the now public fight for “Gay Liberation.” He fostered vital relationships with fellow activists, politicians, socialites, and gangsters. His style of organizing and activism showed the power of the “influencer” decades before social media brought millions together with a meme.

He founded groups that lead seminal protests that resulted in: The American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality as a disease from its diagnostic manual, protecting civil rights for gay citizens in California, and reducing police violence against the gay community. And for every good thing Kight did, he took credit for more. He was a man who, with his many flaws, managed to alienate as many people as he brought together. His story brings to life his work as remembered by those who loved and loathed him.

Morris Kight, an exciting rebel among rebels, came to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s and immediately addressed the needs of a marginalized fraction of society: gay men. He wrote his phone number on walls in jails and bars to offer help with an underground bail fund, private counseling, and backroom treatment for STDs. This was the beginning of a community where there was none. Influential in the anti-war movement in the 60s, Kight then parlayed his energies into the post-Stonewall bi-coastal gay revolution. Through coalition building, he created a seat at the table of social reform for homosexuals.

This biography tells Kight’s personal tale entwined with a narrative of activism and the gay rights movement. Though Kight is included in many anthologies, historical narratives, and feature-length documentaries, this book is the first in-depth analysis of the man, the activist.

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My Review: Know any freshly-out babyqueers looking around for evidence of their elders? I can't think of a better character for them to learn about than abrasive, annoying, essentially contrarian and always cranky Morris Kight.

He comes across vividly in Author Cherry's personally grounded recreations of Morris' life of outsiderdom...mother ran a brothel in Bible-Belt Texas!

He came by his larger-than-life persona honestly. And Author Cherry writes it direct, pulls no punches, hides no warts. There were so many wonderful things he did, he started, he forced into being by his will alone. (Or so he'd've told you.)

All of this work, all of his contributions, and is he lauded and celebrated today? Under the current kakistocracy, of course not. But I am here to tell you, my cishet siblings, this man's life is one you should trumpet to the young, directionless, disheartened and downhearted, because there's no better cure for paralysis than action. Kight's story is a klaxon, a billboard with a searchlight on it, an unmistakable shout from the past: "Get up and do the work!"

I recommend it. I wish it'd had inline citations, but really the endnotes are very, very extensive; just not quite as useful for source checks as I would like. There are many illustrative snapshots and photo ops, but I left most of them out...much of a muchness after a while, more there to set the scene and build the mood of the times.

A quality addition to the fast-fading memory of my own elders, whose work and sacrifices have let me lead a better out-life than they could.

AND INTRODUCING DEXTER GAINES: A Novel of Old Hollywood, lovely way to spend an afternoon

AND INTRODUCING DEXTER GAINES: A Novel of Old Hollywood
MARK B. PERRY
Amble Press(non-affiliate Amazon link)
$9.99 ebook edition, available tomorrow

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Emmy, Golden Globe, and GLAAD Award-winning writer Mark B. Perry deftly weaves fictional characters with well-known personalities of Hollywood’s golden age into this powerful and sparkling novel about the wages of flesh and sin.

HOLLYWOOD, 1952

Blessed with the smoldering good looks that destine him for the silver screen, the unfortunately named Dan Root arrives on the scene as a naïve but ambitious 21-year-old. Mentored and exploited by a powerful and dashing Svengali-like producer and his beguiling wife (a movie star whose career is on the tragic cusp between fame and fade out), Dan is transformed into the promising young actor, Dexter Gaines.

Soon their three lives become dangerously entangled by sexual awakening and unrequited love, but when their passion and deceit lead to a crushing discovery and attempted murder, Dexter is forced to choose between stardom and survival. Four decades later, a heartbreaking event compels Dan to return to the city of lost dreams and confront his past. It is only then he begins to unravel the twists and turns of a long-ago emotional mystery, to make peace with his past and his foiled chance at stardom.

Mark B. Perry's alternating timelines explore the corrosive confluence of fame, fortune, sexuality, and ill-fated romance in this captivating Capote-esque novel.

And Introducing Dexter Gaines: A Novel of Old Hollywood is a revised and retitled version of City of Whores from Amble Press, an imprint of Bywater Books.

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My Review: A book from ten years ago that I *vaguely* remember reading gets a glow-up. That's no doubt a good thing. I am far more sharply aware of this version of the story, and I'm very glad to say it deserved my sharpened attention.

I don't remember the cameos of real Hollywood stars anything like as clearly as they come across here, so I have to think those characterizations got a serious amount of attention...or my strokes ate more of my recall than I'm pretending to myself they did...either way, glamourous walk-ons like Tallulah Bankhead are such a joy to read.

The plot is a classic, an evergreen, and for a reason. It really happens. Read YOUNG MAN FROM THE PROVINCES: A Gay Life Before Stonewall if you want factual confirmation. There are so many memoirs from people whose beauty seduced powerful people into doing for them what they could not do for themselves, not always to their lasting benefit.

I don't think it will help you decide what to do about reading the story for me to run through the details. What I most want you to know is that, like all the best pulpy plots, this one hauled me along on each of its turns, implausible though I felt they were at times. I'm pretty sure I could find someone out there to whom even the most implausible things had honestly, in actual fact, occurred. Reality has that all over fiction: It isn't required to make sense.

There's intrigue, there's beautiful cinematically described settings and scenery...there to be chewed...there's exciting skulduggery in pursuit of...well, who really cares as long they're chewing the scenery with enough verve. I like a sudsy romantic read, and when it's also delivering commentary on period-appropriate homophobia and suchlike buffoonery, it's an extra win for this storytelling formula.

The missing star was lost in the time vortex between the 1950s and the 1990s. I really hate saying it out loud, but the 1990s were thirty years ago. *wince* A book about gay Hollywood set in two historical times that were both virulently homophobic felt...off, unbalanced, not to put too fine a point on it ill-judged.

Fun was had, though, and that ain't worth nothin' in today's horror movie of a world.