chronicling the insanity
Mar. 17th, 2025 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porticoi'm always reading queer murder mysteries a little bit. never not reading queer murder mysteries. call it a load-bearing genre. however, right now i am only reading queer murder mysteries and doing so in a way which might be termed compulsive. i am also involved in the final days of a 4-month long renovation bleeding into the slowest house move imaginable. the two things might be related. anyway, here is an attempt to record my descent into wherever it is i'm going. have some queer mysteries.
the compulsion kicked off on february 19th, but i read one queer mystery before then, so i'm just going from feb 1st.
By the Book by Gregory Ashe: 7th in Ashe's "Last Picks," which is a cozy series about dashiell dane, a mystery writer (more in theory than fact) and son of mystery writers who ends up on the oregon coast after being framed for a murder which didn't actually happen and now lives in a big old manor house with his boyfriend, solving mysteries and trying to write. there's something about dash's voice and the way he thinks about things in the context of mysteries--specifically different types of mysteries--that really chimes with me, a person who was raised on a steady diet of murder she wrote and agatha christie. i also think ashe does a good job of balancing the requisite hijinks you need in a cozy versus the actual way that human beings talk to each other. anyway, this volume is about dash's mystery-writing parents coming to town and also a rare book being stolen. lots in my wheelhouse, and i enjoyed it! plus now that dash and bobby have gotten together i no longer want to personally strangle the author.
Secrets and Scrabble #1-4 by Josh Lanyon: my library had this box set on hoopla, which means i got Murder at Pirate's Cove, Secret at Skull House, Mystery at the Masquerade, and Scandal at the Salty Dog all for the price of 1 borrow. a bargain! i like josh lanyon as a writer, but boy does she love a cop. i don't, so i'm picky about what i read by her. this series (a cozy) follows Ellery Page, a failed actor who inherits a bookshop and house in rhode island from a great-aunt he'd never met and decides to pull up stakes and relocate. naturally there's a romance, and naturally (for lanyon) it's with the village's sheriff. who's an ex-LAPD detective, just to drive the point home. i did like these books, although i don't find the series as charming as i do the last picks. there's an additional 4 books which i haven't read because the library doesn't have them.
Hide and Seek by Josh Lanyon: this is a standalone thriller and romance between a museum curator and an ex-spook. josh has got to have SOMEONE with SOME amount of state-sponsored authority i guess. the cops in this one suck, which is something. ANYWAY. satisfying thriller involving the hunt for a specific snow globe. second chance romance that i would have enjoyed more if i hadn't decided before starting it that it was going to be a different kind of romance and feeling disappointed when i didn't get that. that's my fault.
Seance on a Summer's Night by Josh Lanyon: romantic suspense about a possibly-haunted house and a man who's come home to visit and is trying and failing to be the only sane person there. josh has a way of writing settings sometimes that make them feel suspended in time, and this is a great example of that. could not have told you when this was set, and even after it was established as present day i didn't really believe it. worked for the story! i loved the fact that the protagonist was a theater critic (Artemus Bancroft, what a name) and i really loved that his love interest (despite being a cop) was a fan of Artemus's because of his work as a critic. gave him a dorky charm.
Stranger in the House by Josh Lanyon: the rarest of the rare: a lanyon without a cop in it. this is a novella and part of the Footsteps in the Dark anthology. you'll see more from it as we go. stranger in the house follows miles, who inherits a mansion and everything in it from a friend of his late mother's. he goes to montreal to claim it and discovers there's already someone in the house claiming to be him. he also reconnects with the son of his mother's friend, who miles had loved as a child and who subsequently broke his heart (unknowingly, by virtue of his harsh criticism of miles' artwork). this broke the josh lanyon mold in several ways which i enjoyed.
Mystery on the Menu by Nicole Kimberling: Kimberling was my favourite find in Footsteps in the Dark, which includes her novella Entrée to Murder. In addition to Entrée, this collection contains the novellas Recipe for Trouble and Homicide and Hospitality. All three comprise a cozy series set in the San Juan Islands of Washington and follow Drew Allison, a chef, and Deputy "Mac" Mackenzie. kimberling approaches law enforcement in this books with a more jaundiced eye than josh, which i appreciated. i also liked the pairing of jaded california gay drew and serious just-realized-he's-bi mac. but the best part of the series imo are the elderly lesbians who adopt drew.
Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts: this is obviously the exception to the queer aspect of this journey. if all you know about nora roberts is that she writes romance, then you have missed out on some GREAT thrillers. when i read josh lanyon's excellent Stranger on the Shore last year (my first josh but obviously far from the last) it immediately made me think of Carolina Moon, which I read in my teens (it came out in 2001) and remembered as being a peak nora romantic thriller. after reading Hide and Seek, I decided it was high time to revisit it. and yes, it is about a woman, tory, returning home to finally come to terms with the murder of her childhood friend hope when tory was also just a child, as well as the abuse she suffered during the time. and yes, she falls in love with hope's big brother. remembered all that. but it's also paranormal?? i had somehow COMPLETELY forgotten that tory is a whole ass psychic. (that's another thing--if all you know about nora roberts etc, she also writes a TON of paranormal/fantasy-adjacent stuff. loves a witch, does nora.) i don't think it entirely stands the test of time (although for a book written in 2001 about well-established white landowners in south carolina it could have been a LOT worse), but my main complaint is IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN GAY. hope's twin sister faith is still around and is an absolute disaster of a person and there's a secondary romance with her and tory's cousin and while tory and faith's relationship IS a big part of the book why are these men even HERE. shoulda been tory and faith. that's all.
The Bellingham Mystery Series by Nicole Kimberling: this is a 6 novella series collected in two volumes. Volume one contains Primal Red, Evergreen, and Black Cat Ink. Volume two contains One Man’s Treasure, Birds of a Feather, and Pentimento Blues. This series has been the absolute stand-out for me. It follows Peter Fontaine, an investigative journalist in Bellingham, Washington (which is where Kimberling also hails from, resulting in a lovingly lived-in setting) who stumbles across a body (this is always how it begins) and then sets out to solve the murder. his romance is with artist Nick, and it's sooooo good imo. Nick is older, serious and reserved, and the course of their relationship is one of discovery for Peter. They are both wonderfully believably human characters. I'd classify this as a cozy series, but it also feels more substantial than a cozy typically is. highest rec on this list.
Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector by Nicole Kimberling: Another set of novellas (and a couple short stories) from Kimberling, this one following Keith Curry, who is a former chef and current food inspector for "NATO's Irregulars Affairs Division." This collects Keith's entire story, which includes a romance with a goblin (who looks like a human. which is too bad). It was funny and different, but still I think ranks third on my Kimberling list.
Reality Bites by S.C. Wynne: returning to Footsteps in the Dark about my Kimberling detour, I started but did not finish Twelve Seconds by Meg Perry, a promising mystery about a space shuttle explosion that was unfortunately extremely boring, then moved onto Reality Bites. this novella is about the death of a reality show contestant (who was mauled to death by a tiger??? and everyone is like rip i guess but we're not cancelling the show????? which is a reality show in which people risk being mauled to death by a tiger to make money?????????) and the romance is between the producer of the show and the detective investigating it. it was just okay i thought. the tiger thing weird as hell.
Blind Man's Bluff by L.B. Gregg: the next Footsteps in the Dark novella. zero cops in this one! it's about a group of friends who like to get together and play capture the flag in abandoned places. this particular game is set in a decaying shopping mall--GREAT setting. the game is quickly derailed when they stumble across a teenager who has clearly been held captive and they all have to figure out how to get out. Really fun story, enjoyed the romance, will likely seek out more by Gregg.
A Country for Old Men by Dal MacLean: this is the only novella of the bunch not available outside of the anthology, which is too bad because it was really good! Calum Macleod has returned to the Hebrides to head his island home's constabulary and he's full of mixed feelings. things only get more complicated when he starts receiving anonymous emails which purport to be the historic diary entries of a gay man from the island, a man is murdered, and his ex shows up as an expert witness. really lovely story of feeling trapped and finding hope, and a good ass mystery.
Pepper the Crime Lab by Z.A. Maxfield: Lonnie Boudreaux has just moved into a new apartment building, still recovering from months of illness and determined to ease his way back into work as well as into dog ownership. Then a man is killed, Lonnie's knife is the murder weapon, and he's saddled with the victim's dog, who is a reactive puppy--not at ALL the breed Lonnie's careful research had convinced him he wanted. This was a good mystery and I enjoyed the romance, but wish the writing had been better. Just didn't really click for me.
Lights. Camera. Murder. by C.S. Poe: i concluded a long time ago that c.s. poe just isn't for me (with the exception of one series which i do like), and this followed that trend. the characters in her books just don't talk to each other in a way that feels real to me, and there isn't anything else there to distract me from it. the mystery was fine!
Bitter Legacy by Dal Maclean: circled back around to Maclean after finishing the anthology. this is a hefty book in a number of ways. it follows james, a detective sergeant in London investigating first one, and then a second murder. james is in a weird place--he left the family business and came out to his father all in one go and so has been cut off from family and funds. he needs a place to live, which is how he ends up in ben's orbit, a magnetic photographer as at home in his sexuality as james is uncomfortable in his. this does end happily, but it takes a long time to get there. but it's well-earned, i think. characters are interesting and complicated, and the mystery is good.
Holmes & Moriarity series by Josh Lanyon: this finally brings us to the Holmes & Moriarity series by Josh Lanyon. I have read Somebody Killed His Editor, All She Wrote, and The Boy with the Painful Tattoo, and am currently reading In Other Words...Murder (and there's a new one out at the end of the month, after a 7-year break). this is another stab on josh's part at a cozy series and imo much more successful than secrets & scrabble. holmes is Christopher Holmes, author of a long-running cozy mystery series about a botanist called Mrs. Butterwith, and moriarity is J.X. Moriarity, ex-cop (of course) and successful author of thrillers. they reconnect at a writer's retreat 10 years after their one weekend together, both of them in vastly different personal and professional situations. i like holmes. he's something of a curmudgeon, massively inconvenienced by his fading career and by having fallen in love with someone who expects things of him. who makes him want to expect things of himself. he's thoroughly relatable to me, and i can't help but like j.x., who loves him in spite of himself. these aren't the most challenging mysteries, but in this case the rest of it makes it work.
and that's where i'm at. enjoying myself but looking forward to being able to do other things again someday.
the compulsion kicked off on february 19th, but i read one queer mystery before then, so i'm just going from feb 1st.
By the Book by Gregory Ashe: 7th in Ashe's "Last Picks," which is a cozy series about dashiell dane, a mystery writer (more in theory than fact) and son of mystery writers who ends up on the oregon coast after being framed for a murder which didn't actually happen and now lives in a big old manor house with his boyfriend, solving mysteries and trying to write. there's something about dash's voice and the way he thinks about things in the context of mysteries--specifically different types of mysteries--that really chimes with me, a person who was raised on a steady diet of murder she wrote and agatha christie. i also think ashe does a good job of balancing the requisite hijinks you need in a cozy versus the actual way that human beings talk to each other. anyway, this volume is about dash's mystery-writing parents coming to town and also a rare book being stolen. lots in my wheelhouse, and i enjoyed it! plus now that dash and bobby have gotten together i no longer want to personally strangle the author.
Secrets and Scrabble #1-4 by Josh Lanyon: my library had this box set on hoopla, which means i got Murder at Pirate's Cove, Secret at Skull House, Mystery at the Masquerade, and Scandal at the Salty Dog all for the price of 1 borrow. a bargain! i like josh lanyon as a writer, but boy does she love a cop. i don't, so i'm picky about what i read by her. this series (a cozy) follows Ellery Page, a failed actor who inherits a bookshop and house in rhode island from a great-aunt he'd never met and decides to pull up stakes and relocate. naturally there's a romance, and naturally (for lanyon) it's with the village's sheriff. who's an ex-LAPD detective, just to drive the point home. i did like these books, although i don't find the series as charming as i do the last picks. there's an additional 4 books which i haven't read because the library doesn't have them.
Hide and Seek by Josh Lanyon: this is a standalone thriller and romance between a museum curator and an ex-spook. josh has got to have SOMEONE with SOME amount of state-sponsored authority i guess. the cops in this one suck, which is something. ANYWAY. satisfying thriller involving the hunt for a specific snow globe. second chance romance that i would have enjoyed more if i hadn't decided before starting it that it was going to be a different kind of romance and feeling disappointed when i didn't get that. that's my fault.
Seance on a Summer's Night by Josh Lanyon: romantic suspense about a possibly-haunted house and a man who's come home to visit and is trying and failing to be the only sane person there. josh has a way of writing settings sometimes that make them feel suspended in time, and this is a great example of that. could not have told you when this was set, and even after it was established as present day i didn't really believe it. worked for the story! i loved the fact that the protagonist was a theater critic (Artemus Bancroft, what a name) and i really loved that his love interest (despite being a cop) was a fan of Artemus's because of his work as a critic. gave him a dorky charm.
Stranger in the House by Josh Lanyon: the rarest of the rare: a lanyon without a cop in it. this is a novella and part of the Footsteps in the Dark anthology. you'll see more from it as we go. stranger in the house follows miles, who inherits a mansion and everything in it from a friend of his late mother's. he goes to montreal to claim it and discovers there's already someone in the house claiming to be him. he also reconnects with the son of his mother's friend, who miles had loved as a child and who subsequently broke his heart (unknowingly, by virtue of his harsh criticism of miles' artwork). this broke the josh lanyon mold in several ways which i enjoyed.
Mystery on the Menu by Nicole Kimberling: Kimberling was my favourite find in Footsteps in the Dark, which includes her novella Entrée to Murder. In addition to Entrée, this collection contains the novellas Recipe for Trouble and Homicide and Hospitality. All three comprise a cozy series set in the San Juan Islands of Washington and follow Drew Allison, a chef, and Deputy "Mac" Mackenzie. kimberling approaches law enforcement in this books with a more jaundiced eye than josh, which i appreciated. i also liked the pairing of jaded california gay drew and serious just-realized-he's-bi mac. but the best part of the series imo are the elderly lesbians who adopt drew.
Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts: this is obviously the exception to the queer aspect of this journey. if all you know about nora roberts is that she writes romance, then you have missed out on some GREAT thrillers. when i read josh lanyon's excellent Stranger on the Shore last year (my first josh but obviously far from the last) it immediately made me think of Carolina Moon, which I read in my teens (it came out in 2001) and remembered as being a peak nora romantic thriller. after reading Hide and Seek, I decided it was high time to revisit it. and yes, it is about a woman, tory, returning home to finally come to terms with the murder of her childhood friend hope when tory was also just a child, as well as the abuse she suffered during the time. and yes, she falls in love with hope's big brother. remembered all that. but it's also paranormal?? i had somehow COMPLETELY forgotten that tory is a whole ass psychic. (that's another thing--if all you know about nora roberts etc, she also writes a TON of paranormal/fantasy-adjacent stuff. loves a witch, does nora.) i don't think it entirely stands the test of time (although for a book written in 2001 about well-established white landowners in south carolina it could have been a LOT worse), but my main complaint is IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN GAY. hope's twin sister faith is still around and is an absolute disaster of a person and there's a secondary romance with her and tory's cousin and while tory and faith's relationship IS a big part of the book why are these men even HERE. shoulda been tory and faith. that's all.
The Bellingham Mystery Series by Nicole Kimberling: this is a 6 novella series collected in two volumes. Volume one contains Primal Red, Evergreen, and Black Cat Ink. Volume two contains One Man’s Treasure, Birds of a Feather, and Pentimento Blues. This series has been the absolute stand-out for me. It follows Peter Fontaine, an investigative journalist in Bellingham, Washington (which is where Kimberling also hails from, resulting in a lovingly lived-in setting) who stumbles across a body (this is always how it begins) and then sets out to solve the murder. his romance is with artist Nick, and it's sooooo good imo. Nick is older, serious and reserved, and the course of their relationship is one of discovery for Peter. They are both wonderfully believably human characters. I'd classify this as a cozy series, but it also feels more substantial than a cozy typically is. highest rec on this list.
Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector by Nicole Kimberling: Another set of novellas (and a couple short stories) from Kimberling, this one following Keith Curry, who is a former chef and current food inspector for "NATO's Irregulars Affairs Division." This collects Keith's entire story, which includes a romance with a goblin (who looks like a human. which is too bad). It was funny and different, but still I think ranks third on my Kimberling list.
Reality Bites by S.C. Wynne: returning to Footsteps in the Dark about my Kimberling detour, I started but did not finish Twelve Seconds by Meg Perry, a promising mystery about a space shuttle explosion that was unfortunately extremely boring, then moved onto Reality Bites. this novella is about the death of a reality show contestant (who was mauled to death by a tiger??? and everyone is like rip i guess but we're not cancelling the show????? which is a reality show in which people risk being mauled to death by a tiger to make money?????????) and the romance is between the producer of the show and the detective investigating it. it was just okay i thought. the tiger thing weird as hell.
Blind Man's Bluff by L.B. Gregg: the next Footsteps in the Dark novella. zero cops in this one! it's about a group of friends who like to get together and play capture the flag in abandoned places. this particular game is set in a decaying shopping mall--GREAT setting. the game is quickly derailed when they stumble across a teenager who has clearly been held captive and they all have to figure out how to get out. Really fun story, enjoyed the romance, will likely seek out more by Gregg.
A Country for Old Men by Dal MacLean: this is the only novella of the bunch not available outside of the anthology, which is too bad because it was really good! Calum Macleod has returned to the Hebrides to head his island home's constabulary and he's full of mixed feelings. things only get more complicated when he starts receiving anonymous emails which purport to be the historic diary entries of a gay man from the island, a man is murdered, and his ex shows up as an expert witness. really lovely story of feeling trapped and finding hope, and a good ass mystery.
Pepper the Crime Lab by Z.A. Maxfield: Lonnie Boudreaux has just moved into a new apartment building, still recovering from months of illness and determined to ease his way back into work as well as into dog ownership. Then a man is killed, Lonnie's knife is the murder weapon, and he's saddled with the victim's dog, who is a reactive puppy--not at ALL the breed Lonnie's careful research had convinced him he wanted. This was a good mystery and I enjoyed the romance, but wish the writing had been better. Just didn't really click for me.
Lights. Camera. Murder. by C.S. Poe: i concluded a long time ago that c.s. poe just isn't for me (with the exception of one series which i do like), and this followed that trend. the characters in her books just don't talk to each other in a way that feels real to me, and there isn't anything else there to distract me from it. the mystery was fine!
Bitter Legacy by Dal Maclean: circled back around to Maclean after finishing the anthology. this is a hefty book in a number of ways. it follows james, a detective sergeant in London investigating first one, and then a second murder. james is in a weird place--he left the family business and came out to his father all in one go and so has been cut off from family and funds. he needs a place to live, which is how he ends up in ben's orbit, a magnetic photographer as at home in his sexuality as james is uncomfortable in his. this does end happily, but it takes a long time to get there. but it's well-earned, i think. characters are interesting and complicated, and the mystery is good.
Holmes & Moriarity series by Josh Lanyon: this finally brings us to the Holmes & Moriarity series by Josh Lanyon. I have read Somebody Killed His Editor, All She Wrote, and The Boy with the Painful Tattoo, and am currently reading In Other Words...Murder (and there's a new one out at the end of the month, after a 7-year break). this is another stab on josh's part at a cozy series and imo much more successful than secrets & scrabble. holmes is Christopher Holmes, author of a long-running cozy mystery series about a botanist called Mrs. Butterwith, and moriarity is J.X. Moriarity, ex-cop (of course) and successful author of thrillers. they reconnect at a writer's retreat 10 years after their one weekend together, both of them in vastly different personal and professional situations. i like holmes. he's something of a curmudgeon, massively inconvenienced by his fading career and by having fallen in love with someone who expects things of him. who makes him want to expect things of himself. he's thoroughly relatable to me, and i can't help but like j.x., who loves him in spite of himself. these aren't the most challenging mysteries, but in this case the rest of it makes it work.
and that's where i'm at. enjoying myself but looking forward to being able to do other things again someday.
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Date: 2025-03-18 01:12 am (UTC)