Quick Picks: Mystery
Author: Drewey Wayne Gunn
June 24, 2009
THE ANGEL SINGERS, Dorien Grey (Zumaya Boundless, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-934841-06-8). In the twelfth Dick Hardesty mystery, a rather obvious killer is moving among members of the Gay Men’s Chorus, of which Dick’s lover, Jonathan, is a member. The novel’s interest, more than ever, is domestic.
BONES, Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine Books, $27.00, ISBN 978-0-345-49513-6). Bodies and skeletons turn up at a L.A. wildlife refuge, and an obvious suspects quickly appears. Gay detective Milo Sturgis has a prominent role, but there is no other gay interest to this, the 23rd case in the Alex Delaware series.
COMPULSION, Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine Books, $27.00, ISBN 978-0-345-46527-6). A cross-dressing serial killer with a taste for expensive automobiles dispatches mostly women; a subplot deals with the disappearance of a young boy sixteen years earlier. Milo Sturgis dominates the case, the 22nd in the series.
DIE, MOMMIE, DIE! AND PSYCHO BEACH PARTY, Charles Busch (Alyson Books, $14.95, ISBN: 978-1-59350-025-2). The screenplays for the two film mysteries allow one to appreciate the actor/author’s writing skills.
HALF A CROWN, Jo Walton (Tor Books, $25.95, ISBN 978-0-7653-1621-9). The concluding volume of a trilogy relates what happens in 1960 to an England, in an alternate history, under a fascist government allied with Hitler. It is less a mystery than were Farthing and Ha’Penny, the first two novels.
PSYCOP: PROPERTY, Jordan Castillo Price (JCP Books, $12.95, ISBN 978-0-9818752-0-0). The third and fourth novella in this romance-mystery series starring a cop who sees ghosts and his lover, who gets off to all things psychic, confirm that Price is a talent worth watching. One novella is about zombies; the other, a ghostly raper.
SCHOOLED IN MURDER, Mark Richard Zubro (St. Martin’s Minotaur, $25.95, ISBN 978-0-312-34346-0). A murderer strikes once again at Tom’s high school in this twelfth case in the long-running Tom and Scott series.
THE SECRET TUNNEL, James Lear (Cleis Press, $13.95, ISBN 978-1-57344-329-6). In his second case, set in the 1920s, Mitch Mitchell once again keeps getting distracted by various sexual hijinks from his efforts to discover the murderer on the train, the Flying Scotsman.
