Set in the fictional Bay City, a thinly disguised San Francisco circa 1960, The Gay Detective is a hardboiled camp novel centering around a baffling blackmail and murder ring. When the latest corpse turns up and police realize they are faced with still another dead end, they contact the Morely Agency, a detective outfit recently bequeathed to the late Mr. Morely's nephew.
Julian Leclerc, a handsome and talented young barrister, has been found dead of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. The verdict is accidental death, but his fiancee, Ann Hewitt, suspects there's something more to the story. As the grieving woman recounts the details of Julian's tragic end to psychiatrist Dr. Tony Page, he listens with acute interest - but not for the reason she thinks. Years earlier, he and Julian had been lovers, and now, disturbed by the circumstances of his friend's demise, Tony sets out to uncover the truth. His quest will take him from the parties and pubs of the gay underworld of 1950s London to Scotland Yard and the House of Commons as he uses his shrewd and penetrating insight to find who or what was responsible for Julian's death. But he may discover more than he bargained for - about Julian, and himself.
After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The Times Dave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald. In Fadeout, Dave is sent to investigate the death of radio personality Fox Olsen. His car is found crashed in a dry river bed. But there is no body - and as Dave looks deeper into his life, it seems as though he had good reasons to disappear.
Mahu--a generally negative Hawaiian term for homosexuals--introduces a unique character to detective fiction. Kimo Kanapa'aka is a handsome, mixed-race surfer living in Honolulu, a police detective confronting his homosexuality in an atmosphere of macho bravado within the police force. When Kimo Kanapa'aka leaves a Honolulu gay bar late one night and stumbles onto two men dropping a dead body in an alley, he has no idea that he is about to begin the journey of his life -- into danger, passion and self-awareness.
Boston’s hottest new gay bar is making a killing in this mystery first published in 1984 that’s “screamingly funny in the gayest way!” (The New York Times). Daniel Valentine is a gay bartender. Clarisse Lovelace is his straight pal. From Boston’s gay underground to the fabulous beaches of Provincetown, they do everything together (well, okay, not everything). And between it all, they still find time to solve a few murders. When Clarissa is gifted a run-down building by her gay uncle Noah, she and Daniel decide to make a dream come true: opening their own gay bar. While Clarissa heads off to law school, Daniel gets busy turning their new bar into Boston’s grooviest gay boite. In this exuberantly pre-AIDS world, everything seems perfectly peachy—until Daniel discovers a dead body at the disco.
When vacationing Chicago detectives Nick and Norm witness a tragic accident involving a famous entertainer, the local police chief asks for their help. The duo's investigation uncovers crime and corruption in paradise as they come face-to-face with a ruthless killer...As homegrown eccentrics, drag queens, and dwarves rush to their aid in this heart- pounding thriller!
Sixteen years after this 1992 story, and forced outing remains a hot button in gay politics. When an activist's claims that men he's outed are stalking him don't ring true, Albany's only gay PI drops his protection detail - and the client winds up dead. Strachey peels back the layers of his client's double cross only to find...a triple cross. (Filmed for release by HereTV in 2005.)
The book that was the basis for the hit film by the same title starring Al Pacino. The killer makes love to women. But only the feel of his knife into a man’s body can satisfy him. The rookie enters the killer’s nightworld as decoy. Becomes the killer’s prey... and then the victim of his own violent, tortured mind. Two men will stalk Manhattan’s shadowed streets, bars, parks, places where men meet men. Both hurting. Both obsessed. Lured closer and closer to each other. Across the line between cop and killer. Into the terror of homicidal compulsion.
"Joss Whedon...can’t possibly write All The Things That Are Kind Of Like This. So hallelujah that Edgar Cantero – a Barcelona native whose first language is Spanish, but who spits pop-culture in English like the savviest geek in, say, Sheboygan posting on Tumblr – is writing some of them.”--The Austin Chronicle From the New York Times bestselling author of Meddling Kids comes a mind-blowing, gender-bending, genre-smashing romp through the entire pantheon of action and noir. It is also a bold, tautly crafted novel about family, being weird, and claiming your place in your own crazy story. In a dingy office in Fisherman's Wharf, the glass panel in the door bears the names of A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean. Private Eyes. Behind the door there is only one desk, one chair, one scrawny androgynous P.I. in a tank top and skimpy waistcoat. A.Z., as they are collectively known, are twin brother and sister. He's pure misanthropic logic, she's wild hedonistic creativity. The Kimreans have been locked in mortal battle since they were in utero...which is tricky because they, very literally, share one single body. That's right. One body, two pilots. The mystery and absurdity of how Kimrean functions, and how they subvert every plotline, twist, explosion, and gunshot--and confuse every cop, neckless thug, cartel boss, ninja, and femme fatale--in the book is pure Cantero magic. Someone is murdering the sons of the ruthless drug cartel boss known as the Lyon in the biggest baddest town in California--San Carnal. The notorious A.Z. Kimrean must go to the sin-soaked, palm-tree-lined streets of San Carnal, infiltrate the Lyon's inner circle, and find out who is targeting his heirs, and while they are at it, rescue an undercover cop in too deep, deal with a plucky young stowaway, and stop a major gang war from engulfing California. They'll face every plot device and break every rule Elmore Leonard wrote before they can crack the case, if they don't kill each other (themselves) first. This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us is a brilliantly subversive and comic thriller celebrating noir detectives, Die Hard, Fast & Furious, and the worst case of sibling rivalry, that can only come from the mind of Edgar Cantero.
International chef Jake Hardy has it all. Celebrity, thriving career, plenty of friends, a happy family and faithful dog. Until one day when a tragic accident tears it all apart. Struggling to recover, Hardy finds himself in a strange new world--a snow-swept prairie town that time forgot--a place where nothing makes sense. Cold is beautiful. Simple is complex. And doubts begin to surface about whether Jake's tragedy was truly an accident after all. As the sun sets in the Land of Living Skies, Hardy and his glamourous, seventy-eight-year-old transgender neighbour find themselves ensnared in multiple murders separated by decades. In Bidulka's "love letter to life on the prairies" he delivers a story of grief and loss that manages to burst with joy, tenderness and hope. Redolent of his earlier works, Going to Beautiful brings us unexpected, under-represented characters in settings that immediately feel familiar and beloved. Beautiful--a place where what you need may not be what you were looking for.
