Jon Michaelsen's Blog: Ramblings, Excerpts, WIPs, etc., page 7

Orientation (Borealis Investigations Book 1) by Gregory Ashe

Excerpt:

Something had
taken a dump in Shaw’s mouth. He rolled, felt the familiar
crease of his buckwheat pillow, and instantly regretted it. The mouse that had
taken a dump in his mouth was currently burrowing up into his head. It was
trying to gnaw through his skull. Cold sweat flashed out along his entire body,
and Shaw knew he was going to be sick.

“I put your popcorn bucket by the bed.”

The words landed like a hammer, practically
shattering Shaw’s head, but they were still a godsend. He flopped onto his
stomach, found the bucket blindly, and fitted it around his mouth. Then he
puked. And puked. And puked.

When he’d finished, he gently set the bucket
down. And then he tried to die.

“It was one whiskey sour.” North’s voice moved
closer, and the bucket’s plastic chirped against the floor as North picked it
up, and then North’s voice moved away again. “It’s not like you were trying to
outdrink some asshole in Dogtown.”

From the adjoining bathroom came the sound of
running water and then the flush of the toilet. North’s footsteps came across the
room. Those strong, rough hands gathered Shaw’s hair and wound it into a loose
knot, and North pressed a cool, wet cloth against the back of Shaw’s neck.

“Here.” Two ibuprofen. “And here.” A glass of
water. “Drink all of it.”

“I’m going to die.”

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“It was one whiskey sour.” But North didn’t
sound confused. He sounded amused. Shaw was used to that by now, the gently
mocking amusement that North found in every idiotic thing Shaw managed to do.
It used to bother him. That was back in the early days, freshman year, when the
only thing that mattered in Shaw’s universe was gaining North’s approval.

Shaw’s first glimpse of North, from the far
end of the dorm hall, had totally, utterly ruined Shaw for anybody else. At
least, that was how it felt at the time. When Shaw saw North’s thatch of messy
blond hair and his blue work shirt, complete with an oval that spelled Mick across his well-developed chest,
and the jeans sculpting a magnificent ass and the boots—Timberland, back then,
instead of the Red Wings he wore now—Shaw had been lost. Obliterated. And that
was before—Shaw groaned again, and this time it was only partially due to the
whiskey—that was before Shaw learned that North was smart and funny and kind.
Shaw had never had a chance.

That was before, too, the night Shaw had sat
on the Sigma Sigma roof and listened through the window and heard North shatter
all his dreams with a single sentence.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about
something,” North said. A chair squealed across the floor, and the sound went
through Shaw’s brain like an anti-aircraft shell. “It happened again last
night.”

Shaw didn’t dare roll over—he was convinced he
would puke if he moved anything more than his eyelids—but he wanted to burrow
under his pillow. No, forget the pillow. He wanted to burrow through the bed,
through the floor, through the basement, and just keep going. If he somehow
managed to dig his way to China like in a cartoon, that would be ok. If he
evaporated inside the Earth’s molten core, that might be better.

Shaw’s stomach lurched, and he concentrated on
not barfing. Last night. Lord, why had he been such an idiot last night? All of
North’s needling about drinking, that had been fine. North liked to give Shaw a
hard time. North liked to tease. Most days, it was fine. But yesterday had been
a storm of things. It had started with North asking how the date had gone—Hank?
Harry? Harold?—and with the disappointment in North’s face when Shaw told him
the truth: it had ended the same way, with a slow build of heat all evening and
then a flash freeze that left Shaw standing awkward and embarrassed and
fumbling for a way to get home, alone, as fast as possible. North’s disappointment
had been bad enough.

But then there had been Matty. Matty’s unruly
wave of blond hair. Eyes like gemstones—a clarity of color that was sapphire or
amethyst when the light shifted. There was—not that Shaw could have admitted
it, not that the thought even quite reached the surface—the fact that Matty
could have been North’s younger brother, albeit without all the muscles and
with slightly more refined features. There was the way Matty had clutched
Shaw’s hand, and that familiar rumble of fire in Shaw’s gut. And of course,
there was the fact that North didn’t like Matty, which made perfect sense in
this universe.

But if Shaw were honest, most of that stupid
decision had been about the pretty boy with the cuffed sleeves on his tee and
the low-cut white sneakers and the bare ankles. It had been about the way he
had leaned across the bar, just a fraction of a degree, toward North and the
way he had shifted the towel over his shoulder when North smiled at him, a
nervous, totally unselfconscious gesture that only made Shaw hate the kid more
because it was so transparently honest. And there had been the moment North called
the kid beautiful.

Shaw groaned; his fingers scraped blindly at
the floor. “I think I’m—”

“Bucket’s right here.” North’s hand lifted the
rat’s nest of hair and refolded the cold cloth. “But try to breathe through it
first.”

North was right, as he so often was, and the
need to barf passed. North’s hand hadn’t left Shaw’s neck. His fingers coiled
Shaw’s long hair. Every once in a while, just accidents of chance, his thumb
would scrape the side of Shaw’s neck. It was so wonderful that it was much, much
scarier than barfing into the popcorn bucket again.

“What I wanted to talk about—” North began.

And here it was. This was the moment when they
had to confront the truth they’d both danced around since freshman year. They’d
never talked about it—thank God, Shaw thought with a bubble of clarity through
the pain, thank God I didn’t open my mouth five minutes earlier when we were
out on the Sigma Sigma roof; thank God I was a coward and I got to hear what he
really thought. But now North was going to say something about how he was
worried Shaw had feelings for him, and that was ridiculous of course, that was
totally impossible, Shaw had moved on, Shaw had gone out with a lot of guys
since then, Shaw had basically forgotten, almost totally forgotten what it had
felt like to see North for the first time at the end of the dorm hall. But
North wouldn’t believe him; North was going to make a big deal out of nothing.

But all North said was, “—is that I think
you’ve got a drinking problem.”

Relief went through Shaw like a hailstorm,
cold and pinging all over him, almost painful with how hard it hit. He
flattened his face in the pillow and laughed, and he didn’t even feel like he
needed to puke. Not yet, anyway.

“I think you might need time for detox. Maybe
some recovery time in a treatment center.” North’s thumb kept scraping that hot
line up the side of Shaw’s neck.

“Of course,” Shaw said into the pillow.

“We’ll have to make some pretty big lifestyle
changes.”

“That would really help.”

“If you want, Pari and I could do an
intervention.”

“I think Pari would only like an
intervention,” Shaw said, “if it was for her.”

“Well,” North said, “I’ve got a list of
grievances.”

Shaw lifted his head, and even though the
whole room looked like it was under water, he could see that typical North
smile lightening those ice-rim eyes, crinkling the corners, without ever
touching his mouth. North had matching black eyes today, and a fresh split
across the bridge of his nose covered by tape. Shaw wanted to ask when North
had found the time for more boxing, but all he said was, “I don’t think you’re
supposed to call them grievances.”

“I’m running this intervention. I can call
them whatever I want.”

Shaw dropped his head into the pillow again.

“I’d like to take you all the way back to
Labor Day, freshman year.”

“Please don’t,” Shaw said. “I’m not ready for
time travel.”

As North spoke, he peeled back the wet cloth,
and his fingers took up a light massage: kneading the sensitive flesh at the
base of Shaw’s neck, the touch dry and rasping—workman’s hands, the thought
flashed along Shaw’s synapses like brushfire. “The setting: your dad’s lake
house at Innsbrook,” North said. “More specifically, the docks. The characters:
Kingsley Shaw Wilder Aldrich, North McKinney—”

“North Ebenezer McKinney,” Shaw said groggily
into the buckwheat.

“That is not my middle name, but a very nice
try. Tucker Laguerre, Rufus Johnson, and a host of Chouteau bros that you
decided to invite for some reason I will never understand.”

“They were cute. And we were all trying to
make friends.”

“Well, there was that one Ladue boy you wanted
to lick the sunscreen off.”

“Percy was cute.” Shaw found himself dragging
the word out in response to the pressure of North’s fingers. “And he read me a
poem by Lord Byron.”

“Well, you are a slut for poetry.”

“I would say I’m a—”

“Slut. For poetry.”

Shaw had a brilliant rejoinder, but then
North’s fingers dug deeper, and he moaned into the pillow.

“And,” North said, “if you’ll recall, after
the equivalent of approximately three-quarters of a wine cooler—”

“I’d been pregaming. I had a big glass of
orange juice that morning, and it was old. I think it was kind of fermented.”

“—you managed to wind up naked, in the
bathroom, puking into one of Tucker’s shoes. A very, very good first
impression, by the way, on my future husband.”

“His shoes were white.”

“Uh huh.”

“And big.”

“Uh huh.”

The deep tissue drag of North’s fingers was
hypnotic, and Shaw was surprised that the worst of the hangover was receding. “Anybody
could have mistaken them for the toilet. And anyway, Tucker was being a total
asshole to you that day, and he kept trying to get his hand down Percy’s swim
trunks because he said he wanted to find out manually if Percy was cut or not.”

Then Shaw heard what he’d said. He froze.

North’s hand froze.

“North, I—”

“You need a shower. And then we need to get
going. Unless you’re not feeling up to it?”

Shaw couldn’t bring himself to look up from
the buckwheat where he was burying his face. “North, that was a million years
ago, and I wasn’t—”

North’s Red Wings stomped toward the stairs so
hard that the whole house seemed liable to fall. Then down the stairs. Then
through the galley kitchen. Stomping like he meant to test every floorboard’s
structural integrity.

“Shit,” Shaw whispered into the pillow. “Shit,
shit, shit, shit, shit.”

And then he threw up once more in the popcorn
bucket.

About the Author



Gregory Ashe

Gregory Ashe is a longtime Midwesterner. He
has lived in Chicago, Bloomington (IN), and Saint Louis, his current home. Aside
from reading and writing (which take up a lot of his time), he is an educator.

Learn more about Gregory
Ashe and forthcoming works
at www.gregoryashe.com.

For advanced access,
exclusive content, limited-time promotions, and insider information, please
sign up for my mailing list here!

Buy Orientation here.

Exclusive Excerpt: The Hidden Law: A Henry Rios Novel (Henry Rios Mysteries Book 5) by Michael Nava

Excerpt:

It was nearly noon when I left City Hall. I found a
phone, checked in with my secretary, and returned calls. When I finished, I
still had an hour before a court appearance at the Criminal Courts Building, so
I called home to invite Josh to lunch with me. All I got was his voice on our
answering machine, urging me to leave a message. I hung up.

There had been a time when the course of
his day was as familiar to me as mine. Now, I stood there for a moment, wondering
where he might be. It was spring break at UCLA, so I knew he wasn’t in class,
but beyond that, I could only guess. I headed to a sandwich shop in the Civic
Center mall. It was warm and smoggy. The only sign of spring was the flowering
jacarandas, bleeding purple blossoms onto the grimy sidewalks.

I passed a bookstore. Displayed in the
windows was a book entitled Vows: How to Make Your Marriage Work. I
stopped and read the book jacket, which promised new solutions to old marital
problems like disputes over money, sex and child-rearing. What about when one
of you has a terminal disease and the other doesn’t? What was the solution to
that? Each time Josh’s T-cell count dropped, I felt him drift farther away from
me, into his circle of Act Up friends, and his seropositive support group. He
had become an AIDS guerrilla, impatient with my caution, contemptuous of my
advice. Just that morning, bickering again over the wisdom of outing closeted
politicians—he said
we had to expose their hypocrisy, I said it would only drive others deeper into
the closet—he’d snapped,
“Spoken like a true neggie,” as if being negative for the virus was a defect of
character.

Our arguments were no longer intellectual
disagreements. He had adopted an “us vs. them” mentality over AIDS, and the
more anxious he felt about his own health, the more strident he became. There
might have been less ferocity in our quarrels if we had been able to talk about
his anxiety, as we once had, but he had decided that even this, or perhaps
especially this, was beyond my understanding. I reacted with my own anger at
being treated like an enemy by the man with whom I’d shared the last five years
of my life. I went into the bookstore and bought the book, suffering the sales
clerk’s sympathetic glance as he stuffed it into a bag. Over a limp ham
sandwich I flipped through the chapters. Finding nothing relevant, I buried it
in my briefcase and set off to court, the one place where I knew the rules.

I arrived in court a few minutes late. The
deputy district attorney, an amiable man named Kelly Miller, who had been
chatting with the clerk, said to me, “Your kid’s a no-show, Henry.”

My ‘kid’ was a twenty-year-old gay man
named Jimmy Dee, Deeds on the street, where his deeds were legion. He was a handsome
black boy with a luminous smile, undeniable charm, a four-page rap sheet for
hustling and theft, and a romantic attachment to heroin. His last boyfriend, a
much older man, had had him arrested for stealing from him to support his
habit. After grueling negotiations, I had persuaded the boyfriend, Miller, and
the judge to let Deeds plead to trespass on condition that he enter a drug
rehab. The purpose of this hearing was for him to submit proof that he’d found
a bed somewhere. He was being given a break, a fact that I impressed upon him
at every opportunity. When I did, he would turn his klieg light smile on me and
say, “I know, Mr. Rios, I know. God put you in my life.”

“He’s not that late,” I said.

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“Fifteen minutes late.” Judge Patricia
Ryan strode out of her chambers, arranging the bow of her blouse over her
judicial robe. She was a patrician black woman with an acute street sense. “I
don’t know why I let you talk me into this, Henry. I should have had your
client dragged away in manacles when I had the chance.”

Although she was joking, I could tell she
was irate.

“The case would have fallen apart without
this deal,” I said. “The boyfriend is deeply in the closet. He wouldn’t have
testified.”

Miller said, “Your kid copped. I could’ve
convicted him on his statement.”

“Juries aren’t buying confessions from
black defendants in L.A. these days,” I replied.

Judge Ryan said, “Save this, gentlemen.
I’m going to issue an arrest warrant.”

“Wait, Judge, will you hold it one day?
I’ll go out looking for him.”

She narrowed her eyes. “We’ve given him
every opportunity.”

“So what’s one more, Your Honor?”

“Mr. Miller?” she asked.

Kelly shrugged, “Why not? I’m sure Henry’s
not getting paid for this extra work.”

She took her seat on the bench. “OK. People
versus Deeds. The defendant is not in court. I will issue an arrest warrant
to be held until tomorrow morning. Good luck, Mr. Rios.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

I called Josh from a phone in the corridor
and caught him at home. I explained that I was going in search of Deeds and
might not be in until late.

“I won’t be here anyway. There’s an Act Up
demo at Antonovich’s house,” he said, referring to a particularly reactionary
county supervisor.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I can’t tell you everything.”

That solved the mystery of where he had
been when I’d called earlier.

“Is this a lawful demonstration, or am I
going to be bailing you out of jail again?”

Coolly, he replied, “The worst that ever
happens is that they hold us overnight.”

“It’s LAPD, Josh,” I said, annoyed at his
nonchalance. “I’ve seen what they’re capable of with prisoners.”

“They’re not going to beat us up,” he
said. “They won’t even touch us without gloves and masks.”

“What if you had a health crisis? Do you
think the cops would rush to call for medical help?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

“I’d like you to stay that way by not
putting yourself in dangerous situations.”

“You want me to stay home and let someone
else do my fighting for me.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“This is my fight. This is my life. What
do you not understand about that?”

I took a deep breath. “Fine, Josh. In that
case, do whatever you want.”

“I will,” he said, and clanged the
receiver down.

I hung up and immediately called back, but
the line was busy, and stayed busy until I finally gave up.

Eight hours later, after searching for
Deeds in his usual haunts I found myself pulling into the parking lot of the
Santa Monica Motel in West Hollywood with my investigator, Freeman Vidor. It
was a perfunctory, two-floor stucco building wedged on a small lot just off the
boulevard within walking distance of the gay bars; the kind of place where the
vacancy sign was perennially lit and rooms could be rented by the hour.

“This it?” Freeman asked. “A hot sheet
hotel?”

“According to his dealer, Deeds turns
tricks here sometimes.”

We got out of the car and went into the
dimly lit office. An Asian woman stood behind the desk watching us
apprehensively.

“Yes,” she said.

Freeman produced a mug shot of Deeds and
his private investigator’s license. “We’re looking for this kid.”

“Police?” she inquired, holding up his
license to the light.

“I’m a private cop,” he said. “This is Mr.
Rios, the kid’s lawyer.”

She took stock of me in my sincere blue
suit, trying to puzzle it out.

“We’re not here to make any trouble,” I
told her. “The boy calls himself Deeds. He has to be in court tomorrow morning
and I promised the judge he’d be there.”

We all stood there for a moment while she
weighed her options. An air conditioner hummed loudly. Although glossy brochures
advertised Gray Line tours and fun at Disneyland from a metal rack on a table
in the corner, I doubted whether this place attracted that kind of trade.

“Twenty-three,” she said, wearily. “Don’t
kick in the door.”

We found the room. I knocked a couple of
times, then called him. I tried the door. Locked.

“We’ll have to ask her to let us in,” I
said.

“Go admire the view,” Freeman said.

I walked over to the railing and watched
the traffic stream up and down the boulevard. A blond in a Jeep cruised by slowly,
his cassette player blaring a disco tune from the seventies. Ah, the hunt, I
thought, remembering the nights I had stood in San Francisco bars listening to
that same song while I ingested a little liquid courage. Or, rather, a lot of
liquid courage. Most nights I would stagger out alone and take the train back
to school. Once in a while someone would pick me up, or I would pick him up,
and I would toil in a stranger’s bed for a few hours, trying to get out of my
skin by going through his. I imagined that I was having fun, and sometimes I
was, but not nearly often enough to justify the effort.

I watched the blond disappear into the
night and thought, Josh is hooking up with someone. The thought had been in the
back of my mind for months but only now, as I stood in the sexy airs of
Boystown, did it all fall into place: the element of evasion in his behavior
which had never been there before, the vagueness about where he was going, and
when he would be coming back.

I knew he had occasionally slept with other
men. He was thirteen years younger than me and while we’d been monogamous for
the first two years, he got hit on all the time, and it wasn’t realistic for me
to expect that he wouldn’t be tempted by at least some of the offers. Also, I
suspected his HIV-status held him back, part of his shame at having been
infected and I wanted him to overcome it, even if it meant he slept around a
bit. So, we talked it out and came up with some rules—don’t bring anyone to the house, no staying out
overnight and remember where home is. Josh was discreet, but this was
different. This wasn’t being discreet, this was hiding something and I feared
that what he was hiding wasn’t that he was having sex with another guy, but
that he was in love with him.

“Henry.”

I glanced back at Freeman. He was holding
the door open.

We stepped inside to a darkened room.

“Deeds,” I called. A sliver of light
seeped out from beneath a door at the other end of the room. I went over and
knocked. “Jimmy, are you in there?”

When there was no answer, I turned the
knob and shoved the door open.

“Oh, shit,” Freeman muttered.

A naked Jimmy Dee sat sloppily on the
toilet, his head tilted back at an angle that would have hurt had he been
alive. A needle was still jammed into his arm. His mouth was open and he stared
up at a water stain on the ceiling in the shape of Africa.

I closed the door and said to Freeman, “Go
call 911.”

After he left, I switched on the light and
looked around the room. Deeds’s clothes were in a pile at the foot of the
unmade bed. There was a twenty on the nightstand, wages for his last trick, no
doubt. On the dresser was a little pile of papers. I examined them and found my
card, some phone numbers and an envelope addressed to Judge Ryan with the
return address of SafeHouse, the same rehab that Gus Peña had been in. I tucked the envelope into my
pocket.

Josh had left the kitchen window open and
the room smelled faintly of the anise that grew wild down the side of the hill
from our house. He wasn’t there. I poured myself a glass of water and sat down
at the kitchen table with the envelope I’d taken from Deeds’s room. Inside was
a letter from Edith Rosen, M.F.C.C., attesting to the fact that Deeds was
scheduled to enter SafeHouse the following Monday, three days hence.

“You little shit,” I said aloud, more in
grief than anger. In my work, I was used to losing, but I thought I’d staked
out a tiny victory with Deeds.

But then, I’d had a weakness for junkies,
for their defeated, helpless charm. Of course, I knew better. My own fight with
the bottle had taught me intimately everything there was to know about
addiction. Drunks and junkies all had a big hole in their gut that sucked in
panic like Pandora’s box in reverse unless it was filled by booze or a fix.
Eventually, that stopped working, and the panic went out of control until the
only thing left was dying. Sometimes, like Deeds, death is what you got and
some­times, like me, you were given a reprieve, but there was no logic about
it. Even if you lived, the panic was still there. It only faded when you began to
see it for what it was, the long drop from darkness to darkness, and you
stopped fighting.

At that moment I could feel the panic
elbowing me, tossing up the image of Deeds in that grisly motel bathroom,
reminding me of every grisly room through which I had stumbled drunk, so close
to dying myself. And when that didn’t get me going, the panic asked, “Where’s
Josh?” a surefire tactic. I got up from the kitchen table and went into the
bedroom, switching on the lamp and stretching out on the bed, still unmade from
that morning. A book was half buried in the covers, the paperback edition of Borrowed
Time, Paul Monette’s moving tale of his lover’s death of AIDS. Josh had
been reading it.

It was after eleven. The demonstration was
certainly over by now.

I sat up and fumbled for the TV remote
control, flicking on the set at the foot of the bed. I switched channels until
I found some local news, looking for a report about the Act Up demonstration.
Instead, I found myself watching Gus Peña, standing against the backdrop of the city
council chamber, his arm draped around his son. Peña was saying, “My kids have always made me proud,
now I want them to be able to say the same thing about me.” Little Peña didn’t seem to be
buying it.

Watching them, I thought of my father, and
about pride and about betrayal. I shut off the TV, got undressed and into bed,
ready for a long night.

“How was the demonstration?” I asked the
next morning, pouring myself a cup of coffee as I waited for my bagel to toast.
I had been asleep when Josh came in. Waking beside him, my face against his
bare back, I had breathed another man’s smell on his body.

Shaggy-haired and heavy-lidded, he sat at
the kitchen table in boxers, mixing an assortment of liquid vitamins into his
organic cranberry juice.

He looked up at me. “It was great! The
cops turned up in riot gear. You could tell they were terrified that one of us might
bite them.”

“Anyone get arrested?”

He finished mixing his holistic cocktail.
“No, the cops told us that Antonovich wasn’t even in town, so after an hour we
split.”

The toaster oven clicked and I retrieved
my bagel. Buttering it, I asked, as casually as I could manage, “What did you
do then?”

“Drove Steven home,” he said, straining
for equal nonchalance. “Sat and talked to him for a while. Did you find your
client?”

I sat down at the table. “Yes, as a matter
of fact. In a motel room in Boystown. He was dead.”

“Murdered?” he asked, putting his drink
down.

“Overdose.”

“I’m sorry. I know how much you liked that
kid.”

I crunched into the bagel. “Not as much as
I like you.”

I watched him take a slug of juice,
watched the muscles in his neck contract as he weighed a response. “What do you
mean?”

“Who are you sleeping with?”

Without hesitation, he replied. “Steven.”

I thought back. Our house had become a
kind of activists’ club­house and frequently I came home to find a meeting
raging in the living room. Though Josh had introduced me to many of the men and
women who attended these sessions, their faces blurred in my mind into a single
youthful face flushed with excitement and anger. Steven?

Then I saw him. About my height, muscular,
good-looking. Not one of the big talkers, but the others listened when he did
speak. Josh had mentioned once that Steven was one of the oldest surviving PWAs
in the group, having been diagnosed five years earlier.

Josh was speaking, “I kept meaning to tell
you, but it seems like we never see each other anymore…”

“Are you saying this happened because I’ve
neglected you?”

“No,” he said. “It happened because I fell
in love with him.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you fell in
love with his diagnosis?”

He stared at me in disbelief, and then
fury.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean that.”

“You meant it all right,” he said, pushing
his chair back from the table. He stalked out of the house. I heard his car
start up. I didn’t think he would be coming back soon.

Blurb:

Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by the New York Times as “one of our best” writers. In The Hidden Law, Rios delves deeply into his Latino identity as he defends a young man charged with assassinating a prominent Los Angeles Latino politician. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed the novel and its author: “A beautifully conceived but gritty novel . . . . Nava writes the kind of small, clean, powerful novels that build in emotional power almost invisibly, leaving us breathless at the end.”

More about Michael Nava



Michael Nava

Michael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of eight novels featuring gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios who The New Yorker,called “a detective unlike any previous protagonist in American noir.” The New York Times Book Reviewhas called Nava “one of our best” writers. He is also the author of an award-winning historical novel, TheCity of Palaces, set at the beginning of the 1910 Mexican revolution. In addition, he is the writer/producer of the Henry Rios Mysteries Podcastwhich adapted the first Rios novel, Lay Your Sleeping Head into an 18-episode audio drama. In 2019, he also founded Persigo Press, through which he hopes to publish LGBTQ writers and writers of color who write genre fiction that combines fidelity to the conventions of their genre with exceptional literary merit.

Exclusive Excerpt: FreeForm (Jas Anderson Book 1) by Jack Dickson

Excerpt:

“Mhairi? It’s DS Anderson …”

 “Ah dinney ken ony DS
Anderson. Fuck aff!”

 Jas lowered his
voice. “DS Anderson – London Road. Remember?” They’d been close, he and Mhairi
… Jas smiled: the nearest thing he’d had to a friend in the days before Leigh.

“Fuck aff, polis!” A harsh laugh. “Ah’ve had enougha yous
tae last me a lifetime.”

“Come on, Mhairi …” He kicked the bottom of the door. It
didn’t give an inch. “… open up. It’s Jas – ah’ve bin talkin’ tae Ali.”

Silence. Then: “Ali? Ali who?”

 Jas laughed.
“Ali-fuckin’ Baba! Ali Rehmandi – remember? Ali’s worried aboot ye, Mhairi. Ah
wis worried aboot ye tae.”

Scrapings, bolts unbolted, chains unchained. Slowly, the
door opened a crack. A jaundiced eye peered at him. “Jas? Big Jas?”

“Aye, Mhairi … can ah come in?”

The door burst open and a thin arm grabbed his. “Get inside,
ya stupit fuck … whit ye dain’ roon here?” He was pulled into the flat.

In the unlit hall, Mhairi carefully re-did dead-bolts and
the three-foot metal security bar which ran the breadth of the door.

Jas waited. She turned, pressing fingers into his chest.

“Go on through, man.”

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Jas made his way through to the lounge. Mhairi followed. The
walls were a lurid orange, the carpet new, a static-inducing brown nylon. There
was no furniture to speak of. A couple of blankets lay in a corner, along with
a blue sleeping-bag. Three large holdalls slouched in a corner, spilling what
looked like black PVC. A small TV sat perkily on a cardboard box. The room was
tidy and clean. Jas walked to the curtainless window, before turning. “It’s bin
a while, Mhairi.”

Long, dark hair hung across her face. She wore red
sweat-pants and a baggy white top. Large, black trainers housed small feet. She
looked impossibly young. Smack … the fountain of youth. At 5′ 4″ Mhairi was
smaller, thinner than Jas remembered …

She pushed back the hair.

… but the eyes were the same, just a little yellower. Blue
pupils stared out of a Dresden face which was pale as the china, hard as the
bombing-raids. The mouth was set in a red curl, mocked by the long crescent
scar which linked right eye to a birthmark above top lip. Drawn by a crazed
dot-to-dot fanatic whose hand had slipped, the wound glared defiantly at Jas.

She laughed. The scar twitched.

“Hid a good look, hiv ye?” Mhairi walked to the TV and
lifted a packet of cigarettes.

Jas had heard about the attack, but not seen the result.
Like Dali’s ‘St. John’, Mhairi had survived wanton vandalism, but apparently
rejected any restoration attempts. She wore her damage like a badge, flaunting
it.

She jiggled a cigarette in his direction.

He shook his head and moved closer. Gently, he traced the
length of the scar-tissue with the back of a finger. It was knobbly, rough
beneath his touch.

Remaining stationary, Mhairi grabbed his wrist. “Didney
think you were intae wimmin … but that’ll be ten quid, onyway.” She grinned.
The scar twitched again. “Ah’ll dae you a special rate. The punters pay fifteen
tae touch it, twenty tae lick it.”

Jas laughed, enjoying the rapport. “Easy money, eh Mhairi?”

She let go his wrist and lit a cigarette. “Maybe the
Johnstones did me a favour.” She exhaled noisily, blowing a smoke-ring. “Huvney
opened ma legs in months. Nae need.” She fingered her means of production.
“Maest’re happy jist lookin’, then ah toss them aff. A few are intae the rough
stuff …” She pointed to the holdalls. “… but that’s nae hassle, eether.” She
smiled. “Gies me a chance tae dress up!” Mhairi shook her head, disbelieving.
“Corrective Services …” She pronounced the words awkwardly. “Never knew there
wur so many weirdos …” She corrected herself. “… gentlemen of exotic tastes, in
Glasgow …” She sat down.

Jas joined her on the floor. “Take aw’ sorts, Mhairi.”

An ironic smile. “You’d be the expert, man!” Sigh. “If ah’d
kent that earlier, ah couldda retired by noo. As it is …” She looked down at
her hands.

“Still oan the junk, ah hear.”

She nodded. “Aye …” She puffed on the cigarette. “… but at
least ah’m aff the streets.” Pause. “’ Member Chrissy?”

Jas remembered. “Ah wis sorry tae hear aboot …”

“Jist a kid.” The voice was low, tinged with sadness.
“Couldney get by on the social, no wi’ Tony’s habit an’ aw …”

At eighteen, Christine McGhee’s semi-cremated body had been
discovered, naked, three months ago on waste ground. Stabbed twenty-five times.
Her common-law husband was currently in custody, awaiting trial.

“Did it tae feed the kids, only the wance. Some psycho … no’
Tony.” Anger. “Doesney seem fair. At least ah kent whit ah wis dain’ …” She
looked at Jas.

He nodded.

“The risks …” She pulled off a black trainer and rubbed a
foot. Between toes red puncture marks dotted the white skin. “… we aw’ take
risks, eh man? The risk ye take tae block-oot another risk can turn oan ye.”

Jas frowned. Life was full of risks … of one sort or
another. Risks helped fill the emptiness. Mhairi laughed again. “Aw’ this, an’
ah’m still alive an’ clean as a whistle … ’part fae the hepatitis …”

“Lucka the draw, Mhairi. Ye must have a guardian angel up
there, somewhere …” They sat silently together on the floor. Through the wall,
from the next flat, an agonised moan.

Mhairi finished her cigarette, killed it in the ashtray.
“So, Big Man – tae whit dae ah owe the pleasure?” She stood up almost jauntily.

“Ah had a word wi’ Jimmy Mygo.”

Nod. “So ah heard. Wish ah’d seen it. Whit that bastard did
tae that wee boay …” Anger, then pity. “The polis chuck ye oot?”

 “Suspended, but
that’s the leasta ma worries. Ali says the brothers Grimm ur efter me. Ah need
tae git tae them first, Mhairi. Ye heard anythin’ else?”

Mhairi walked to the far side of the room, paused. “They’ll
no’ be well pleased,” she murmured, “that’s fur sure. But ah’ve a feelin’
they’ll no’ dae much aboot it. Jimmy wiz an … embarrassment tae them.”

“They still nickin’ cors?”

 Headshake, then
laugh. “Naw … almost legit, noo, the Johnstones. Big garage – ‘valeting’ they
call it. Flash motors …”

Jas remembered the spinning wheels and screaming brakes of a
white BMW.

“Still runnin’ the girls, on the side, though,” she
continued. “Coupla boys too, nooadays, fae whit ah’ve bin telt … young boys.”

Jas frowned. “Diversification – the mark of the real
entrepreneur!”

Mhairi looked puzzled. “Onyway,” she went on, “ah’d stay
well oota their way, Jas.” Pause. “Hey … ye don’t want me tae start snoutin’
fur ye again, or anything?” She crouched down.

“Naw … you did yer bit.”

“’ Cos ah’ve goat a new guy …”

Jas rubbed the broken skin on his knuckles.

“Toap man.” Mhairi smiled. “Pays better than you ever did!”

“That’s between you an’ him, Mhairi … dae ah ken the guy?”

She shook her head. “Stewart Street … canny tell ye onything
else.”

Jas understood. He got up. “Know where the Johnstones’re
livin’ these days?”

“Movin’ aboot, fae whit ah hear. Nowhere near here, though –
thank fuck!” Her voice leaked concern. “Don’t go lookin’ fur trouble, Jas … let
it lie.”

BLURB:

A tough gay thriller set in the criminal underworld of Glasgow, Scotland.Set in the derelict inner-city of Glasgow’s Dennistoun, FreeForm introduces a tough new gay cop, Detective-Sergeant Jas Anderson. A violent anti-hero, suspended from duty for assault when the story opens, Jas is the natural suspect when Leigh, his lover and partner in a heavy S/M relationship, is found brutally murdered. Now on the run and struggling to clear his name, Jas uncovers Leigh’s involvement in a blackmail ring, and even his lover’s identity becomes confused. Film-noir in inspiration, vividly characterised, and authentically exposing the raw nerves of Thatcherite Britain, FreeForm is set to appeal to a wide readership.

This edition is accompanied by an exclusive 2019 foreword by Clive King.

More About Author Jack Dickson

Jack Dickson – former bass player with Gomorrah and the Sodomites, fashionisto and classically trained pianist (Grade VIII, distinction!) – works and lives in the east end of Glasgow with his partner and his Jack Russell, Dixie. A novelist, screenwriter and currently playwright, Jack continues to obsess over the damaged, charismatic mavericks who fill his novels. Shamelessly mining the world around him and beyond, he writes about junkies and babies, old ladies and ash trees, soldiers and Afghani dancing boys: ordinary people just trying to plough a furrow for themselves through difficult landscapes. When he’s not doing this, Jack himself enjoys a charmed life teaching T’ai Chi, baking his own bread and wandering the Easterhouse marshlands looking (these days!) for buzzards and water voles. He’s the world’s most productive layabout, who was always urged to get a proper job. And still hasn’t. Jack is super chuffed that ReQueered Tales are republishing the “Jas Anderson Investigates” series.

Buy Links:

US link:  https://www.amazon.com/FreeForm-Jas-Anderson-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07T2F8B96/
UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FreeForm-Jas-Anderson-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07T2F8B96/
Canadian link: https://www.amazon.ca/FreeForm-Jas-Anderson-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07T2F8B96/

Find ReQueered Tales @ these links:

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E-mail: requeeredtales@gmail.com

Website: www.requeeredtales.com

Twitter: @QueeredRe

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Howtown: A Henry Rios Novel (The Henry Rios Mysteries Book 4) by Michael Nava

Excerpt:

The phone rang just as I’d finished lacing my brand-new Nikes. “Ben?”

“Yeah, I’m downstairs in
the lobby.”

I glanced out the window.
It was just getting to be dusk. “Still hot outside?” I asked.

“Not too bad. It’ll be
nice and fresh by the river.”

“Give me five minutes.”

He was downstairs,
looking nervously out of place in his black running shorts and Los Robles
Police Department singlet. He smiled when I appeared, and I was again struck by
the contrast between his heavily muscled body and round, little boy’s face—he
looked like he’d stuck his head through one of those muscleman cardboard
cutouts.

“You ready, Mr. Rios?”

“If we’re going to parade
down River Parkway half-naked,” I said, “you’re going to have to stop calling
me Mr. Rios. Try Henry.”

“Sure, Henry. Ready?”

It had been months since
I’d run. “As ready as I’m going to get.”

We walked the few blocks
from the Hyatt to the river’s edge.

“Where’s your friend?”
Ben asked abruptly as we approached Old Towne.

I glanced at him, but he
looked intently ahead. “Josh? He went back to LA.” I hesitated, then added,
“Listen, about that crack he made, Ben. I’m sorry if it embarrassed you.”

“Different strokes for
different folks,” he said, with forced nonchalance.

I couldn’t think of an
appropriate platitude to answer him with and we walked on to the river in awkward
silence.

A bike path went upriver
from the newly renovated waterfront to a park about seven miles away. I figured
I was good for three.

“I need to stretch,” I
said. “You?”

“No, I’m good.”

While he stood watching,
I went through my stretching routine waking slumbering joints and muscles. They
weren’t gracious about being called back into service, but slowly, and
sullenly, they responded.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m
ready.”

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We started at a slow warmup
trot, passing the T-shirt shops and fast-food restaurants that now occupied the
brick structures that had been the original city. It was warmish, still, and
the air was thick with light the color of honey. Briefly, a motorboat shattered
the green surface of the river. Soon we were out of Old Towne and into a wooded
area between the river and a levee.

Away from the cars and
businesses and people, the air was fresher, and the odor different, mixing the
smell of the muddy earth and anise, and some underlying scent of vegetable
decay I’d never smelled anywhere other than by the banks of this river and took
me back, as if each step carried me into the past. Stands of bamboo obscured
the river at points, but then we would pass an open space and it reappeared,
leaves and spores of cottonwood glancing its surface. The sky was beginning to
change, darken, and the sun was slipping out of view in a slow smoke of red and
orange and violet.

Our pace had steadily
increased and now, as we passed a wooden mile marker, I felt my breath deepen,
my legs relax and my arms develop a rhythm instead of simply jerking at my sides.
We’d been running abreast but I knew that if Ben increased the pace I’d have to
drop behind. I found myself remembering my boyhood runs along the river with
Mark Windsor.

Except for the methodical
rasp of our breathing, Mark and I had run in silence. Occasionally one of us
would see something at the side of the trail, a covey of quail or a skunk or
some hippie’s marijuana patch, and would nudge the other to alert him to the
sight. Mostly, though, we just ran, side by side as if yoked together, and I
had the absolute certainty that everything I was seeing, Mark was seeing at the
same moment with the same eyes. I’d never felt so much a part of another person
as I did then; it was what sex was supposed to be like but, as I discovered
soon enough, seldom was.

When we stopped one of us
would say, “Good run,” or “Hard run,” and we’d strip off as much of our
clothing as we thought we could get away with and dash into the river. There
for the rest of the afternoon we’d swim and float, sit on the bank, again not
saying much. In fact, I never knew what Mark was actually thinking or how he
felt. I just assumed that he was as happy to be with me as I was to be with him.
At twilight we’d get dressed and go to our respective houses for dinner and I
wouldn’t see him until the next day. Sometimes it was only the thought of the
next day’s run that got me through those tense meals with my volcanic,
disapproving father.

Ben and I were coming up
on two miles. I was still holding my own, but I could hear the rattle at the
end of my exhalations. It seemed as good a time as any to get on with my
purpose in having suggested this outing.

“What did you think about
the prelim?” I asked.

Ben glanced over at me,
sweat beading at his hairline. “It was real interesting. I never testified
before except one time for drunk driving. How come you didn’t ask me any
questions?”

“Were you disappointed?”

He managed a quick laugh.
“Relieved. I saw how you went after Morrow.”

“There was nothing hinky
about your testimony. Morrow, on the other hand.” I stopped talking to catch my
breath before adding, “I didn’t expect those pictures, though. Had you seen
them before?”

He worried his brow. “Should
we be talking about this?”

“What’s the harm?” I
panted. “Everything was laid out at the prelim.” I jogged a couple of steps
before adding. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, sure.” He speeded
up a little, forcing me into overdrive.

“The pictures surprised
me, that’s all. Makes me kind of wonder if the DA has anything else up his
sleeve.”

“Don’t know,” he replied,
uncomfortably. Eyes forward he added, “I don’t know much about the case. They
just brought me in on the search.”

“I know,” I said. It was
getting harder for me to keep up my end of the conversation as we passed the
two-mile mark. “You know, Ben, getting a conviction’s not too hard in most
criminal cases. The hard part is making it stick on appeal.”

He looked at me. “What do
you mean?”

I slackened our pace.
“The DA has to win fair,” I said, “or it’s no good. I figure I’ve already got
three or four grounds to appeal if Paul gets convicted.”

We slowed even more.
“Like what?” he asked, intently.

“There’s that bogus
search warrant,” I replied, “and then the way the judge ran all over me at the prelim.
But the biggest thing is those pictures. Paul says he didn’t take them. He says
that roll of film had pictures of something else.” We were trotting now. “I
have a witness who’ll back him up.”

“Uh-huh,” Ben said, and
quickened the pace. “Who?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say.
It gets into his alibi.” For a few minutes we ran in silence. My knees were
complaining. To shut them up, I said, “I believe my witness. So, I also have to
believe that someone switched the film you took from Paul’s car with the film
those pictures at the prelim came from.”

“Uh-huh,” he repeated,
increasing his speed again. Sweat ran down his face, and soaked his singlet.

“Can we slow down?” I
asked.

“Sure,” he said, but
didn’t.

“Are we at three miles
yet?”

“Just about.”

“Let’s turn around.”

“One more mile.”

“There’s still three
miles back.”

“One more,” he said, and
spurted off.

Watching his thick legs
pumping, I muttered, “Jerk,” took as deep a breath as I could and pushed on,
managing to stay a few draggy paces behind him. Now, though, it was painful to
breathe and my legs were cramping. Meanwhile it was also getting dark and there
were small eruptions of sound from the riverbank, crickets, frogs, muskrats
slithering across the mud and into the water. We passed a lacy railroad bridge,
unused for decades.

“I’m done,” I shouted,
when we got to four miles. “I’m heading back.”

He looked at me over his
shoulder. “Two miles to the park,” was all he said.

“Asshole,” I thought and
prepared to turn around and start back. I figured this was his macho revenge
for my having impugned the integrity of the cops. The sight of his broad back
as he stripped off his singlet enraged me. I’d been running this trail when he
was still in grade school and I was damned if I was going to give up. I pushed
on, waiting for that moment when my body’d go into overdrive and break through
the pain. It had been a long time since I’d called upon it to break that
barrier and I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore. But I carried less bulk than
he did and I’d been at this for a lot longer. Long enough to know that he had
speed but no strategy for a long run. Strategy was all I had left.

At about four and a half
miles, just when I seemed to be losing sight of him in the darkness and the
distance, my breath evened itself out and the pain in my legs subsided. Up
ahead, his pace slackened, all that muscle weighing him down. Resisting the
impulse to spend everything in a sprint to overtake him, I increased my speed
just to the edge of pain and kept it there, testing that limit, accustoming my
body to it.

At five miles I was close
enough to see that his running was getting sloppy and wayward. A moment later I
was alongside of him, listening to his shaky breath. Glancing over I saw sweat
pouring down his chest, the strain in his face. Although I knew that it must be
almost chilly now, my skin was so hot that I dried up my own sweat.

And then the pain lifted
and I saw with incredible clarity the pavement beneath my feet, the curl in
Ben’s fingers, the dark leaves in the bushes along the trail, the moon rising
above the levee. I felt myself smile and with a choppy breath surged forward a
step, then two, then three, until I was running ahead of him, high on the
euphoria of the effort. It no longer mattered whether he caught up or not, or
how long I ran or that my body was knotted in pain just beneath the euphoria—I
was ready to run until I dropped.

At mile six I turned
around and could no longer see him. Ahead was the entrance to the park. I came
in at a jog and then slowed to a walk. Tomorrow would be torture but at that
moment I was sixteen again. A few minutes later, Ben shuffled in, veered off
toward some bushes and threw up.

He came up to me, wiping
his mouth on his singlet.

“Good run,” I said. “Are
you ready to head back?”

“You’re shittin’ me,
right? I can barely walk.”

“You’re the one who
pushed it.”

“Let’s head up to the
road and flag down a black-and-white. They patrol the park every half hour.”

When he’d recovered, we
walked up the levee road and stood there shivering in the darkness. On the
other side of the levee a field stretched away into the night beneath the moon.
Although my knees ached and my chest was wracked with pain each time I drew a
breath, I still felt wonderful.

“You okay?” I asked Ben.
His face was tense.

“You run pretty good for
an old man,” was all he said. A few minutes later, a black-and-white came down
the road and he flagged it down. It took us back to the Hyatt.

Outside the hotel I
asked, “Where did you park, Ben?”

“In the lot,” he said,
“downstairs.”

“I’ll walk you to your
car.”

We went into the lobby
and took the elevator to the parking lot, saying nothing. I walked him to his
car, an old Chevy lovingly cared for. He leaned against the driver’s door and
grinned at me.

“Man, you’re a ringer.”

“Were you trying to kill
me out there?”

“I guess I got kind of
pissed off at you when you were talking about those pictures.” He wiped sweat
from his forehead. “Anyway, it doesn’t make sense, about switching the film.
Morrow booked it right away.”

“Two hours after the
search,” I corrected him.

“It takes that long to do
the paperwork.”

I didn’t want to admit
that I’d also thought of this. A car skidded around the corner. “I just wanted
to give you something to think about.”

“Why me?” he asked.
“Morrow’s the one you should talk to.”

“I know. I was talking
about Morrow.”

He frowned. “I told you,
Morrow’s my compadre,” he said, using the Spanish expression that described a
friend whom one thought of almost as kin.

I persisted. “Morrow was
the investigator the last time Paul was arrested. You’re the one who told me he
was pissed when Paul got off. Maybe he’s trying to make up for that.”

“I don’t know anything
about that.”

“Think about it,” I
replied, shivering in the chilly subterranean air. “You know, we’re all
ultimately on the same side, Ben. We all want to see that justice is done.
People who commit crimes should be punished, but only for the crimes they
actually commit.”

“The dirtbags get off all
the time,” he said. “Thanks to guys like you.”

“Are you thinking of a
particular dirtbag?”

“You’re cold,” he
replied. He opened the door of his car, reached in and pulled out a sweatshirt
and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, slipping
it on.

He stood irresolutely for
a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are you really like
that?”

“Like what?” I asked,
genuinely confused.

He looked at me. “You
know, someone who likes guys.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I’m
gay.”

He turned his face away
slightly not, it seemed to me, in disgust, but because he didn’t want me to see
what was going on in his eyes.

“And the guy who came to
the door in his skivvies, you were in bed with him?”

“Josh. Yeah. He’s my
partner.”

“Why did he say that
thing about me joining you guys?”

I studied his expression.
He seemed neither particularly upset nor even especially embarrassed.

“He was joking, Ben.”

He considered this for a
moment and in a low voice asked, “What if I had said yes?”

“Are you trying to tell
me something?”

And then, as if awakening
himself, he shook his head, opened the door of his car again and said, firmly, “I
have to go.”

“Here,” I said, taking
off the sweatshirt.

“You can give it back to
me next time,” he said, getting into the car. He rolled down the window.
“Thanks for the run.”

“See you, Ben.”

“Yeah, see you.”

I stood aside and let him back out. He waved and drove off. I waved back and headed up to my room, thinking I owed Josh an apology. Standing next to the car, talking about Josh and me, Ben had been getting a hard-on. Bl

Blurb:

Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by the New York Times as “one of our best” crime writers. Upon its original publication, the Los Angeles Times said of Howtown and its author: “ Nava’s mysteries are faithful to the conventions of the genre, but they are set apart by their insight, compassion and sense of social justice . . .. How Town is Nava’s bravest and most ambitious novel to date.”
This 2019 edition from Persigo Press has been revised and an author’s note added.
Howtown finds Rios back in his hometown of Los Robles, California defending Paul Windsor, a boyhood acquaintance accusing of murdering a pedophile. Windsor is himself a pedophile and the police believe the murder was the result of an extortion scheme gone wrong. It’s up to Rios to prove otherwise, if he can. To do that, he has to confront the ghosts of his past that still linger in the sleepy river town. Simultaneously, the novel explores Rios’s relationship with his HIV-positive lover, Josh Mandel. 
This is a revised edition with an author’s end-note.

More About Author Michael Nava



Michael Nava

Michael Nava is the
author of an acclaimed series of eight novels featuring gay, Latino criminal
defense lawyer Henry Rios who The New
Yorker,called “a detective
unlike any previous protagonist in American noir.” The New York Times Book Review has called Nava “one of our best”
writers. He is also the author of an award-winning historical novel, The City
of Palaces, set at the beginning of the 1910 Mexican revolution. In
addition, he is the writer/producer of the Henry Rios Mysteries Podcast which
adapted the first Rios novel, Lay Your
Sleeping Head into an 18-episode audio drama. In 2019, he also founded Persigo
Press, through which he hopes to publish LGBTQ writers and writers of color who
write genre fiction that combines fidelity to the conventions of their genre
with exceptional literary merit.

Obsessed to Death: A Jamie Brodie Mystery (Jamie Brodie Mysteries Book 18) By Meg Perry

Excerpt

Christine was up before we finished eating and downed her own healthy serving of oatmeal. Once we were dressed and had packed food and water, we loaded Ammo into our Jeep – dogs were welcome on the trail, as long as they were leashed – and headed back to the mountains and the Mescalero reservation.

We checked in at the Inn of the Mountain Gods to inform them of our plans and were granted permission – a necessary formality, according to Meredith – then donned our backpacks and headed out. The lake was formed by the damming of Carrizo Creek. We circled it once then allowed Meredith to lead us away from the lake, on the service road that ran past the golf course. 

We were strolling along comfortably, chatting and laughing. Ammo was trotting along beside me, occasionally stopping to investigate a scent but generally staying right at my heel as he’d been trained. So it caught me off guard when he suddenly stopped, head up, sniffing the air, then took off up the mountain slope.

I yelped, “Ammo, stop!” But for the first time since we’d adopted him, he disobeyed. I had no choice but to follow. Chris and Meredith straggled behind.

Deep into a stand of trees, Ammo slowed. He was sniffing the air, adjusting his course accordingly. A tiny pool of disquiet began to settle in my chest… because Ammo, a certified cadaver dog, was certainly behaving as if he was scenting a corpse.

After another hundred yards or so, we came upon a campsite. Ammo stopped, then sat and woofed softly. In Ammo-speak, “There’s a body here.”

Indeed there was. The body – a heavyset man – was sitting in a low-slung folding chair by a defunct campfire. He was wearing outdoor-appropriate clothing, a knit cap, and boots. His head was hanging down, his chin drooping to his chest.

I said, “Hello? Sir?”

No response. I tiptoed closer. “Sir?” 

Nothing. I bent down to see his face. His eyes were half-open and clouded over, his lips and skin blue-white.

Chris and Meredith scrambled up to the site and stopped. Chris asked, “What’s… who’s that?”

“I don’t know, but he’s dead.”

Chris took an involuntary step back. Meredith asked, “Are you sure?”

I tugged off one glove and tentatively touched the man’s jawline. His skin was cold and felt stiff. I said, “I’m sure.”

Meredith had her phone out. “I’ll call 911.”

Chris and I spoke in stereo. “You have a signal?”

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“I have an Iridium Go device. I’m on the reservation for work often enough, I need to be able to call and text from anywhere in these mountains.” She dialed, then identified herself and described our findings and location.

Then we waited. 

Chris and Meredith went back down the hill to the service road we’d been on so they could guide the responders. I moved myself and Ammo away from the tent and looked around.

There was no sign of anyone else. A one-man tent was pitched a few feet away from where the man sat. A Thermos was on the ground beside his chair.

A lone camper who suffered a heart attack or stroke and died by his fire? 

Possible that he’d only been incapacitated by the precipitating event, then froze to death.

I shuddered. Then I remembered that I hadn’t praised Ammo for a job well done. I dug treats out of my backpack – “good boy, Ammo, way to go” – and hoped that would suffice. Our standard procedure to reward Ammo after a successful training session was to play tug of war with his favorite rope bone. I hadn’t brought it; I never considered that I might need it.

After about twenty minutes, I heard vehicles on the road below. A couple of paramedics came crashing up the hill, equipment in tow. They were followed by a cop, a young Native guy, who said, “Stay right there, if you would, sir.”

“Yes, sir.” I stayed.

The paramedics approached the body and shook his shoulder. “Sir?” They attempted to lift him from the chair and stopped. One of the paramedics said, “He’s either in full rigor or frozen.”

The cop said, “Shit. Is he native?”

“Nope. Appears to be Anglo.”

The cop turned to me. “Sir, stay put. I’ll be right back.”

I continued to stay put. The paramedics followed the cop back down the hill. A few minutes later, he returned, alone. “All right. I’m Officer Mike Chavez, Mescalero Police. You’re family of Ms. Lagai?”

“Yes, sir.” I explained.

“Tell me what happened.”

I told. Chavez eyed Ammo with interest. “Cadaver dog, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cool.” Chavez scanned the area around the tent. “His fire went out.”

“Yeah.”

Chavez sighed. “Why the hell do people camp alone?”

“Um. Seeking solitude?”

He grunted. “Okay, Mr. Brodie, I have to wait here for a physician to declare the death. Give me your address and phone number in case I have any follow-up questions then you and the ladies are free to go.”

At the bottom of the hill, the paramedics were still there, sitting inside the cab of their ambulance. Meredith and Chris were pacing. When they saw me, Chris asked, “Do we have to stay?”

“No. Do you want to keep hiking or go home?”

Meredith and Chris exchanged a look. Meredith said, “I’d rather keep going.”

Chris nodded. “So would I.”

“Suits me.”

We headed further out the service road we’d been on. Meredith pointed out a few native plants along the way, and the dead guy slipped from the forefront of our minds.

When we reversed course and passed the point where Ammo had taken off, a battered four-wheel-drive pickup truck was parked at the side of the road. The ambulance was still there, but the paramedics weren’t. The back doors of the squad vehicle were open, and the stretcher was gone.

Back at the house, Pete had spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stove. He boiled some linguine, and we dug in, ravenous, telling him of our adventures while we Hoovered our dinner. When we got to the part with the corpse, Pete whistled softly. “Wow. Ammo’s first real body.”

“I know, and I didn’t have his rope toy.”

Chris said, “With your habit of stumbling over bodies, you should probably carry one with you at all times.”

Pete and Meredith laughed. I spluttered. “Hey! At least this was a natural death, for once.”

I should have known better.

Blurb

When Jamie Brodie’s dog sniffs out a corpse at a campsite on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, Jamie thinks, “At least it’s a natural death this time.” Not so fast. The dead man is freelance investigative reporter Danny Norman, and he was on the trail of a major story. Who or what was Danny about to expose? Meanwhile, Jamie’s husband, Pete Ferguson, is behaving strangely: careening from one obsession to the next, neglecting the classes he’s teaching, and refusing to admit that there’s anything wrong. 
Jamie needs answers to two questions: What happened to Danny Norman? And, more importantly, what the heck is going on with his husband?

More About Author, Meg Perry

Learn more about author Meg Perry and her Jamie Brodie Mystery series via her website:

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From Meg’s website:

“I’ve been writing the Jamie Brodie Mysteries since June 2012. Hard to believe! Jamie is (like me) an academic librarian. Not like me, he’s a gay man, a Rhodes Scholar, a rugby player, a son, brother, uncle…and boyfriend (eventually, husband). Jamie’s boyfriend (eventual husband) is psychology professor Pete Ferguson, and they share a townhouse in Santa Monica, CA.”

Exclusive Excerpt: A Body To Dye For (Stan Kraychik Book 1) by Grant Michaels

Excerpt

I opened the door and he was there, all six feet of him. My senses switched to slow motion to take it all in. He stood with his weight shifted onto one of his long, muscular legs. His blue-gray eyes glittered.  Though recently shaven, his beard cast a bluish shadow against his satin olive complexion. He didn’t smile, but I knew when he did, it would be luminous. His curly dark hair was tousled. An aroma of balsam surrounded him. One second had passed. 

“You got trouble here?” he asked, restraining the natural power in his resonant voice. A clean white cotton shirt was slightly wrinkled; a striped necktie lay loosened at the collar; sleeves were rolled to expose powerful, hirsute forearms; gray pleated slacks tried in vain to conceal the assertive strength in his loins; shiny black loafers enveloped broad feet with high insteps. When my gaze returned to his face, I saw his eyes looking straight into my own, and felt a Mediterranean zephyr caress my face. Two seconds. 

“Who are you?” he asked curtly. 

“Stan Kraychik,” I answered. 

He pushed his way by me, and three other cops followed him. I heard him say, “Lieutenant Branco,” as he went by. Of the other three cops, one was a plainclothes officer in his late twenties. I sized up his compact body and styled blond hair. A fitting assistant, I thought, but maybe a little too cute and cool. The wedding band on his left hand relieved some of the mystique. 

Another of the three cops was a uniformed officer, a hefty woman almost as tall as Branco. Her arms and shoulders dwarfed mine. Her features were dark and rough, but I sensed a warmth in her. 

The last cop was the lab expert, a reedy black man slightly taller than me. His big bright teeth took up one-fourth of his face when he smiled, which he seemed to do easily. He seemed too gentle to be a cop. 

Branco looked around the room quickly, but I could see him register every detail in a computer-like mind. He scribbled words into a small black notebook while he surveyed the room— and me. “There’ll be more personnel arriving shortly. Now, what happened here?” 

I tried to answer coolly. “Someone’s not breathing in the bedroom. No pulse either.” My stomach lurched again and a tremor ran up and down my spine. Branco nodded to his assistant and the lab man to go check out the body. Suddenly we heard the frenzy of banging drawers and slamming closet doors, even the flushing of a toilet. Branco whirled at me. “Someone else here?” 

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I rolled my eyes and nodded, as though letting him in on a secret. “You bet.” I began to explain, but was interrupted by Calvin’s arrival from the hallway. He’d put on a puffy salmon-colored cotton shirt and baggy white linen pants. The stuff was expensive, just the perfect togs for a Palm Beach reception, but it was out of season in Boston. I was surprised that Calvin could commit such a fashion blunder. He was under more stress than I thought. 

Calvin looked Branco up and down. “Well!” he exclaimed, “I thought that blond you sent to the bedroom was a nice piece, but the prize bull is definitely out here.” 

Branco ignored the comment. (Was he used to it?) Instead he spoke brusquely to Calvin. “Who are you?” 

“I live here. So the real question is, who are you?” His voice quivered with an artificially induced energy. 

Branco said evenly, “Lieutenant Branco, homicide.” 

“No uniform? How do I know you’re a cop?” Branco flashed his badge. Calvin looked at the badge, then at Branco. He said. “You seem quite real, Mr. Bronco.” I was certain Calvin had mispronounced the name intentionally. He continued, “I’m Calvin Redding and I own this flat. And some rather unpleasant events seem to have occurred this evening. I hope your men will able to set everything straight.” The female officer glared at Calvin and cleared her throat.

I said, “Something’s weird, Lieutenant. He wasn’t like this before.” I sounded defensive. 

Branco looked at me coldly. “Quiet, you!” Then to Calvin he said, “We’d appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Redding.” 

“You want me to cooperate? I’d be only too happy to help you, but I think Vannos here may be the one you want to talk to.” Branco turned on me. 

“Just what is your name?” 

His sudden vehemence startled me. “I, uh … it’s … Stan,” I said. “I mean, Stanley. Well, actually, Stanislav is the most correct. But in the shop it’s Vannos. But my grandmother used to call me Stani.” 

Branco shook his head and muttered, “Jesus!” 

Meanwhile, the blond assistant returned from the bedroom. He looked at Branco seriously and said, “You’d better have a look, Lieutenant.” 

Branco said, “Okay,” then left Calvin and me in the living room with the female officer while he and the blond cop went back to the bedroom.

Calvin whispered to me, “Some cop! No uniform, and he has hairy forearms.” He frowned in distaste. 

The female officer moved between us and grumbled to Calvin, “Anything you got to say mister, speak up!” 

When Branco and his assistant came back out, he sent me to the kitchen with the blond one while he interrogated Calvin in the living room. I told the assistant everything that had happened since I first arrived. Talking to him was easier than with Branco, and my fumbling defensive tone went away for a while. Branco took longer with Calvin, so I watched them both from the kitchen doorway. Calvin sank lower into the leather sofa as Branco pressed him for answers. He began to resemble a dog left outside a restaurant while his master went in for a steak dinner. He was quite a different Calvin from a few minutes ago, or even earlier that day. Branco finished and came into the kitchen. He sent the blond cop back out to question Calvin again. Then he sat down, opened his black leather note pad, and took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hear your side of it.” 

“Again?” 

“Just talk.”

I tried to tell him everything I’d told the other cop, but his physical presence unnerved me, and I lost track of exactly what had happened. To make things worse, Branco would jot things in his little black book, but it always seemed at the wrong time.When I’d say something I thought was important, he’d do nothing. Then, when I’d pause to remember a detail, he’d write like a demon, which made me wonder what kind of game he was playing. When I finally finished, he asked me without looking up, “You haven’t touched anything, have you?” 

“No, sir.” I lied calmly…

Blurb

Stan Kraychik is a hairdresser in Boston, leading a successful hairdresser’s life. Successful hairdressers’ lives vary widely but they usually have one thing in common – no dead bodies.

Not only does Stan find a dead body but the police suspect that he’s the killer. Stan, on the other hand, suspects his arrogant client, Calvin, who dragged him into his mess. Proving Calvin did it will clear Stan’s name. Proving it without landing into a different pool of trouble … well, that’s a problem Stan will have to solve.

Grant Michaels’ zany series of adventures starring Stan Kraychik garnered multiple Lambda Literary Awards including a 1991 nomination for Best Gay Mystery for A Body to Dye For. For this new edition, Carl Mesrobian reminisces about his brother Grant in an exclusive foreword, and Neil Placky provides an appreciation in a 2019 introduction.

Published by ReQueered Tales

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Boystown 12: Broken Cord (Boystown Mysteries) by Marshall Thornton

Excerpt

Freemont Tate lived in an exceptionally grand co-op on Lake Shore Drive a few blocks north of my apartment. While I lived in one of the cheapest apartments on the Drive, Tate lived in one of the most expensive. So expensive it had its own private elevator.

After calling up to announce me, the doorman got out a special key and then walked me over to the elevator. Next to the metal doors was a lock into which he put the key. A moment later the doors opened and he nodded his head toward them. I stepped in. There was an up button and a down button but nothing more. I pressed up.

At the top floor, sixteen floors later and the only possible stop, I stepped out into a foyer with a white marble floor, ghastly wallpaper and a real live butler. The butler was a dapper, middle-aged man dressed in a tuxedo—a bit much for mid-morning, I thought. 

He told me, “You’re Mr. Nowak.”

“I am.”

“Mr. Tate recognized your name and asks that you join him in the downstairs library.” 

Downstairs library? Did that mean there was an upstairs library? Not surprisingly, the first thing I noticed when I followed the butler out of the foyer into a long hallway was a flight of stairs leading upstairs. It was the kind of hallway filled with comfortable chairs and small tables, as though the apartment was so large a guest might need to suddenly sit down and rest. 

We passed several open rooms, all to my right: a dining room set for ten, a sitting room, a living room three times as big as my entire apartment. Each room was finished with neatly painted floor boards, molding and cornices. The paintings on the walls looked collectible. There was a Michael France in the sitting room taking up most of a wall. Lilies, I think.

I felt grossly out of place in my faded jeans, Reeboks and dark blue alligator shirt—though, at least that had a collar. 

The downstairs library—which was directly across from the living room—was a deep forest green, including all the molding. The green was carefully chosen to set off an enormous gold-framed mirror that reflected the stunning view of the lake. There was a large mahogany desk and two comfy looking, leather chairs. Presumably Tate only did business here with people he liked. A lot.

A man in his early seventies sat behind the desk. He had a full head of white hair and skin the color of a brick. I suspected a vacation home in Arizona or somewhere else equally scorching. As it happened, I’d never seen him before in my life, which made it unlikely I’d be collecting the money I was owed.

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Standing up to shake my hand, he said, “Mr. Nowak, I presume?”

“Mr. Tate.” I was tempted to ask if his friends called him Free, but then I’d thought the same thing when I met the phony Mr. Tate.

“So, we agree that we’ve never met?” His voice was loud.

“Yes. We do.”

“Pardon me?”

“I said, ‘Yes, we do.’” I raised my voice a bit. The old man didn’t seem to hear very well.

“Wonderful. So, who wrote the check that you attempted to cash?”

“A man came to my office. He introduced himself as Freemont Tate. He was around sixty, salt-and-pepper hair, thick in the middle, pasty complexion, shorter than you are.”

“What kind of work do you do at your office?”

“I’m a private detective.”

“What did you say?”

“A private detective.”

“Oh, I see,” he said, a doubtful tone in his voice. “And what did your Mr. Tate ask you to do?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential.” It wasn’t exactly. Not after the check bounced—nonpayment tends to void most legal agreements. 

He—phony Mr. Tate—hired me to follow his much younger wife and discover whether she was having an affair. She was. The story he fed me was that they had a legal agreement guaranteeing her money if they divorced, but that agreement was void if she cheated. She had and so it was. In retrospect, it was possible none of that was true. 

Since I’d sat outside that very building waiting for the young woman—I assumed I’d followed the right woman. Glancing around, I found a photo of her on the bookshelf, so yeah, I’d followed the right woman. The question now was did Mr. Tate want to know about his wife’s dalliance. If he didn’t want to know, I certainly didn’t want to tell him. 

“Do you have a brother or cousin around your age?” I asked.

“Why would you want to know that?”

“The man I met was near your age. Roughly.” Though he had no issues with his hearing.

“How do you know my age? Why do people always think they know—”

I ignored him and asked again, “Relatives?” 

“Other than my children I have very few relatives. A maiden aunt in her nineties. A few second and third cousins out West.”

“How would someone have gotten ahold of one of your checks?”

“Checks? I keep my personal check register here on the desk most of the time and the extra checks in that cabinet right there.” He pointed at the cabinet that was the base of a built-in bookcase. “The check was taken from the cabinet. It was out of sequence.”

“So you wouldn’t notice right away it was missing. And they only took one check?”

“Yes.”

I stopped for a moment. That meant the entire point of stealing a check was to pay me. This wasn’t part of some bigger theft.

“Who has access to this room?”

“The staff. Teddy, whom you’ve met. Our cook, Midge. Three maids. They come and go so often I don’t learn their names.”

“You and your wife live here alone?”

“No. There are six bedrooms. My wife and I have adjoining rooms; each of my children has a bedroom. The last is a guest room. We often have guests.”

“How old are your children?”

“Forty, thirty-eight and sixteen—if I’m remembering correctly.” 

That told me that Mrs. Tate was a second or third wife. She was a woman in her thirties. Two of the children were older than she was. The sixteen-year-old might be hers. Hard to say. 

It also told me his two older children weren’t particularly ambitious. They were far too old to be living at home.

“So, the list of who had access to your checks includes any of your five servants, possibly more since you say there’s a lot of turnover among the maids, any of your three children, and any of the guests you had in say March, April or early May.”

“Also delivery men. We receive a lot of packages. The plumber, I think, has been here recently. Teddy would know for sure. I believe we had the filters on the air conditioners cleaned, which required letting someone in.”

“This is getting to be quite a list,” I pointed out. Going through it wasn’t going to be the best way to approach this. Of course, I shouldn’t bother. Even if I found the first Mr. Tate, it was unlikely he was going to pay me.

“And you, of course,” he said.

“Me? I’ve never been here before.”

“That is what you’d say, isn’t it, if you were involved.” He stared at me for a moment. “Though I must say, if you are involved it’s brazen of you to show up here asking to be paid. That is what you’re doing, isn’t it? Asking to be paid?”

“You don’t have to pay me. I didn’t work for you.”

“I assume if I pay your bill you’ll tell me why you were hired?”

“That’s not a good idea. This is a con job, don’t you think? The whole point of it is to get you the information I discovered. Someone wants you to know what I’ve learned. And I don’t think they’re doing you any favors.”

The logic in what I’d just said was probably leaping all over the place. But with or without leaps, I couldn’t think of any other reason for a fake Mr. Tate to hire me to uncover Mrs. Tate’s affair other than that he, or whoever hired him, wanted the real Mr. Tate to find out about it.

“Someone’s gone to a lot of effort to put me in this room with you,” I continued. “The best way to thwart them would be for me to remain silent.”

“Yes, but then I think knowing is better than not knowing. The things we don’t know end up hurting us much more than the things we do.” He took his check register out of the top drawer of his desk and began to write me a check. “I’m adding an extra five hundred. For the inconvenience.”

He held out the check and I had to decide whether to take it or not. He seemed like a pretty smart guy. Eventually, he’d realize I’d left his wife off the list of people who might have stolen the check used to pay me. That would tell him she was the subject of my investigation. Once he knew that, it wouldn’t take long for the rest of it to fall into place. I took the check.

“Your wife is much younger than you are.”

“What was that?”

I raised my voice and repeated, “Your wife is much younger than you are.”

“That’s nothing I didn’t already know.”

“She seems to be having an affair with someone name Edward Hurley.”

Tate’s face got tight. “Edward Hurley is my attorney. I think you’ve misunderstood.”

“Yes, that’s entirely possible.” I didn’t think it was.

He waited a moment. “What makes you think they might be having an affair?”

“I followed your wife to the Starlight Motel. She entered a room that had been registered to an Edward Smith. Mrs. Tate was there a little bit more than half an hour. She left the room with a man I later identified as Edward Hurley.”

The Starlight Motel was a seedy place way up on Lincoln Avenue along a stretch where there were a number of other seedy motels. At first, it seemed odd that Mrs. Tate and Hurley would go to such a place when the Drake was available. However, I suspect the Drake doesn’t allow fake names or rent by the hour.

After a moment, Tate cleared his throat and asked, “Did you take photos?”

“I did.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t been sent to me,” Tate said.

“I think they were for my benefit.”

“Your benefit? How so?”

“The, um, imposter told me you have some kind of agreement with your wife. If you divorce her because of infidelity she gets nothing. But he didn’t ask for pictures. I had to suggest them.”

“My wife and I don’t have any such agreement.”

I wondered if he was suddenly wishing they did.

He cleared his throat. “As you’ve pointed out, my wife is much younger than I am. In a marriage like ours certain accommodations need to be made. And that’s all I want to say about it.”

“You’re saying your wife did nothing wrong.”

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. I’d appreciate a little discretion.”

“So whoever wanted you to know—”

“Is a fool.

Blurb

In the latest installment of the Lambda Award-winning Boystown Mysteries, it’s summer 1985.
As Nick’s personal life begins to unravel, Nick throws himself headlong into investigating the murder of a woman married to a much older, wealthy man. It appears that only her husband could have killed her, but Nick is sure that’s not what happened. Meanwhile, Rita Lundquist makes her presence known, posing a continuing threat to Nick and those around him. 

More about award-winning author, Marshall Thornton:

Marshall Thornton writes two popular mystery series, the Boystown Mysteries and the Pinx Video Mysteries. He has won the Lambda Award for Gay Mystery twice, once for each series. His romantic comedy, Femme was also a 2016 Lambda finalist for Best Gay Romance. Other books include My Favorite Uncle, The Ghost Slept Over and Masc, the sequel to Femme. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America.

Sign-up for his newsletter at marshallthorntonauthor.com

Let’s Get Criminal (A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery Book 1) by Lev Raphael

Excerpt

There was no mistaking what truly ended my night’s sleep. The clock radio got us up with local news at eight o’clock on the public radio station. The unctuous voice said, “An SUM professor was found dead on campus early this morning. He has been identified as Professor Perry Cross of the English, American Studies, and Rhetoric Department. Campus Police have released no other details.” 

As the announcer went on to some item about the state legislature, I rolled over to find Stefan staring at me.

I stared back.  “How can he be dead?” 

Stefan frowned, shook his head as if he hadn’t really heard me and wasn’t even sure he was awake.

“He was just here at dinner last night!” I shook my head. “And now he’s dead?” I sat up, leaned back against the headboard. “It was Perry, wasn’t it? You heard it too? I’m not dreaming this, am I?” 

“We’re awake,” Stefan said, and reached back to shut off the radio. 

I didn’t know what to say. Just before falling asleep, I’d joked about killing Perry; I felt disgusted to have said it. 

My mind was full of flickering images of people in movies and on TV finding out about a death: they were usually shocked, they screamed, cried, rushed around, stuffed fists into their mouths, stumbled backwards into a chair, quivering— did things that seemed extreme, no matter how limited the compass. But I was just dumbfounded. 

I guess Stefan was too. 

Suddenly, last night’s dinner felt retrospectively eerie, a portent of even worse things to come. 

We had been eating dinner with a corpse. That’s what it seemed like here in bed this morning. I felt deeply ashamed of how upset I’d been to have Perry over— that seemed trivial now when weighed against his death. 

“I guess I don’t have to share my office anymore,” I brought out. “Or not for a while.” 

Stefan grinned a little strangely, and I realized that joking was definitely not the right tack. 

We got up. We showered and ate breakfast without saying much at all. I felt as if I’d taken too many antihistamines: my vision, my hearing, my thinking were all clouded and dull. 

Stefan had an early class and left before me. Luckily I didn’t have to teach that morning. I only had a long stretch of office hours, and it was somewhat too early in the semester for students to have questions, problems, or even feel like coming in to chat. 

Usually, I went to the department office first to check my mail, say hi to the secretaries and whoever was there, plugging in to the prevailing current. But today I headed right up to the third floor of Parker. I didn’t want people reminding me that I’d seen Perry the night he died, had made dinner for him. It seemed embarrassing and grotesque to talk about him at all, especially since he wasn’t a friend. How could I mention his name withoutsome of my antagonism leaking through? I could imagine Serena Fisch’s smile when she met me. It wasn’t that long ago that we had acknowledged how much we despised Perry. 

I felt guilty somehow, as if saying good night to Perry Cross had sent him off to death. It was weird that I was so affected, but perhaps I was responding to Stefan’s heavy silence. 

If you’ve lived with an introvert, then you know that they can have many different levels and kinds of silence. You become expert at tuning in, listening, interpreting. Or sometimes ignoring. But I didn’t know what to make of Stefan’s silence at breakfast, and felt sucked into my own. 

Unlocking my scarred office door, I shuddered at the two cheap black and white plastic nameplates, mine and Perry’s. Someone would have to remove his, I thought. And I pictured his mailbox right above mine in the department office. 

Inside, at my desk, with the office door open just a crack, I was glad that Perry’s desk and file cabinets were not in my immediate sight line but behind my back, where I could ignore them. I would have to make an effort to either inspect what was on his desk or to take in the still life his death had left behind. 

I knew the student newspaper was downstairs and wondered if there was an article in there yet— or was it too soon? “Found dead on campus”— what did that mean? Where did it happen? Who found him, and when? How did he die? Was he wounded? Were there witnesses? 

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I sat at my desk, unable to take out any papers to grade, unable to push my thoughts in some productive direction. 

I hadn’t liked him even before I knew what he had done to Stefan, so I wasn’t sorry Perry Cross was dead, but I wasn’t relieved. His dying so soon after dinner even made me feel cheated, a little. Lying in bed with Stefan last night, I’d imagined many scenes of quiet but vindictive triumph in our office. Like heading off up north to our cabin on Lake Michigan for a weekend. Or coming back from an opera in Chicago. I’d be casual as I shared information about our good times with Perry, a nasty kid holding a scrap out of his hungry dog’s reach, waving it back and forth hypnotically. 

I was also ashamed of myself for being so vindictive. Perry was dead; nothing that I felt, nothing that had happened really made a difference now.

Perry’s death was bound to create confusion in our department, and not just because of the need for someone to cover his classes. Broadshaw would probably take Perry’s death personally, and storm around kicking desks and shouting. I dreaded the chaos our chair would make. I’d seen him enraged last year by a snowstorm that kept some faculty members at home in their rural towns. I felt sorry for everyone who’d have to put up with Broadshaw, which of course included me.

There was a knock and Stefan came in. I checked my desk clock; he had another hour before his next class. He was pale and more out of it than he had been at home. Today his clothes looked incongruously good on him— they fit so well that the dark green and black checked shirt and black slacks only heightened how miserable he looked. 

He sunk into the comfy chair I had bought for my students (since I couldn’t requisition anything from university stores that was acceptable). Students are usually nervous enough talking to a professor, and watching them twitch and stretch in a stiff-backed unsteady chair would have been distracting for me. 

“They found him in the river,” Stefan said. 

“The river? How? What the hell was he doing?”

Blurb

Nick Hoffman has everything he’s ever wanted: a good teaching job, a beautiful house, and a solid relationship with his lover, Stefan Borowski, a brilliant novelist and writer-in-residence at the State University of Michigan. But when Perry Cross shows up, Nick’s peace of mind is shattered. Not only does he have to share his office with the nefarious Perry, who managed to weasel his way into a tenured position without the right qualifications, he also discovers that Perry played a destructive role in Stefan’s past. When Perry turns up dead, Nick wonders if Stefan might be involved, while the campus police force is wondering the same about Nick. Originally published in 1996, this first book in the Nick Hoffman Academic Mystery series is now back in print, with a 2019 foreword by the author.

About Lev Raphael

Lev Raphael has wanted to be an author since he was in second grade, and he’s not only achieved his dream, he’s published twenty-six books in genres from memoir to mystery to erotic vampire tale; had his work translated into fifteen languages; seen one sell close to 300,000 copies; appeared in two documentaries; won various prizes; done hundreds of invited talks and readings on three different continents; sold his literary papers (92 boxes!) to the Michigan State University Libraries (MSUL); been the subject of scholarly articles, papers, and book chapters; and seen his work taught at colleges and universities around the country. Which means he’s become homework. Who knew?

After close to twenty years of university teaching, he now offers creative writing workshops as well as editing at http://writewithoutborders.com.

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Late Fees (Pinx Video Mysteries Book 3) by Marshall Thornton

Finalist – Gay Mystery, Lambda Literary Awards



Excerpt:

“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” Joanne said, as we drove down
Sunset toward Silver Lake. “You should have just left me there.”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that.” 

It was broad daylight and it wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but
still, I wasn’t going to leave a seventy-year-old woman to fend for herself
outside an apartment building in Hollywood. 

“It’ll be fine, Joanne. When we get to Noah’s you can call Rod
and leave a message, tell him where you are and he’ll call when he wakes up.”

“I wish I could say this wasn’t like him. He’s never been the
most reliable boy. But then he never had to be, he’s always been one of those
people—charm, I guess it is. He’ll do something irresponsible and then the
minute he shows up and smiles at you, well, it’s hard to remember why you were
mad.”

“I’m sure he’s a wonderful boy, and I’m sure he was just having
fun and it got out of hand. Noah, why did you ask if he was at that party? She
didn’t seem to like Rod.”

“I don’t know, it just seemed logical. She said he was sleeping
it off, so he got drunk somewhere and she knew it. Why she wouldn’t want to
admit he was at the party, that I don’t know.”

“I’ll bet you’re right. He was there,” Joanne said. “Rod is so
fun at parties. That girl probably didn’t like that he got all the attention.
Is that the Capitol Records building?” 

It wasn’t. Not even close.

“No. It’s the Cinerama Dome,” I said about the large, white,
dome-shaped movie theater.

“Oh, I’ve never heard of that,” Joanne said, sounding
disappointed. 

“It’s an interesting building,” my mother said. And a moment
later she asked, “Is this where the riots were?”

“Some things happened up here, but most of it was a couple miles
south.”

“I was so worried about you.”

“I was fine.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that. How was Rod during the riots?” my
mother asked, turning around in her seat.

“He saved a woman’s life. She was just walking down Hollywood
Boulevard and some black men attacked her. He scared them off.”

“Was that on the news?” my mother asked. 

“Oh no. Rod hates publicity.”

I didn’t say anything because the story sounded like a lie.
Beating off ‘some’ black men in the middle of the L.A. riots seemed very
unlikely. I knew that some buildings were looted on Hollywood Boulevard, but I
hadn’t heard of anyone being physically assaulted up that far.  

“I don’t know why everyone always says traffic is so bad in L.A.
This is really not bad at all.”

“Mom, it’s a holiday. Everyone is at home or out of town.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose that’s true. I’m starting to get a
headache.”

“Hangover,” I corrected.

“Noah, dear, there’s no reason to be quite so accurate.”

Click to purchase

A few minutes and a couple of turns later, we arrived in front
of my apartment. A small, boxy L-shaped building of two floors sitting on a
hill about thirty feet above the street. A steep, red-painted concrete
staircase led up one side of the property to the courtyard. I parked, got out
of the car, and opened the metal mesh gate to my carport. Then got back in and
drove my car into its space. 

I was out before my mom and Joanne, opening the trunk. I lifted
my mother’s two bags out and set them on the ground.

“Joanne, do you need anything from your bags?”

“I’ll just take the makeup case, I think.”

As I took Joanne’s smaller case out of the trunk, my mother
grabbed both of hers.

“Mom, I’ll take those.”

“Noah, how do you think they got from the house to the car and
from the car to the terminal in Grand Rapids?”

“Skycap?”

“No, I carried them. I can do it again.”

I scowled at her. “Just one.”

She picked up the bigger one and her bulky winter coat. It had
warmed up and was now almost seventy, so she’d finally taken it off. I shut the
trunk. Joanne didn’t move to take any bags. We stepped out of the carport, and
I shut the gate behind my car and locked it. Then I picked up my mom’s smaller
bag and Joanne’s makeup case.

On the stairs, Joanne said, “You mother tells me you own a video
store.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you think my Rod rents movies from you?”

“Um, he’s a little out of the area. He might come by for
something he couldn’t find anywhere else, but other—” 

“I’ll have him take me by and show me.”

“Well, we’ll be open tomorrow.”

“Does Rod have a lot planned for you?” My mother was right. She
wasn’t having any problems carrying her bag. I, however, was already
winded. 

“Oh yes. He has quite a lot planned. We’re going to the
Observatory, and the Hollywood sign, and Universal Studios for the tour, and
the Chinese Theater for a movie—oh, and we have reservations at Spago for
Thanksgiving dinner late this afternoon.”

“That’s a lot,” I said. I’d barely planned anything for my
mother. “How long are you staying?”

“Until Saturday morning.”

Forty-eight hours? They were doing all of that in forty-eight hours? And he
was starting off by oversleeping? Wow.

Joanne started to ask what we had planned for Mom’s visit, but
luckily we’d reached the top of the stairs, and as soon as we did I smelled
bacon. I turned and saw my downstairs neighbors, Marc and Louis, sitting at the
metal table outside their apartment right in front of a giant bird of paradise.
There was a tablecloth over the table and it was set for four.

Louis was near forty, while Marc was about ten years younger.
Louis looked a tiny bit like a frog and Marc was round everywhere. Both wore
big welcoming smiles and their pajamas. Louis’ PJs were a traditional red plaid
while Marc’s were baby blue with a floating pattern of black-and-white cows.

“Hello stranger,” Louis called out. “We expected you more than
an hour ago. Where have you been?”

“Louis, shush,” Marc said. “You know how air travel can be. On a
holiday no less.”

“Guys, you shouldn’t have done this.”

“Don’t worry, Louis was up doing prep for dinner anyway.” We
were having Thanksgiving dinner with them later. I wouldn’t have been able to
get reservations at Spago if my life depended on it.

“Well, this is my mom.”

Marc and Louis stood up and came over. “Hello Mrs. Valentine.”

“Angie, please.”

“Angie,” they both said.

“And this is Joanne,” I said. “Mom and Joanne met at O’Hare
while they were waiting for their flight.”

“We figured out we were both coming to L.A. for Thanksgiving
with our gay sons. What are the chances?” Joanne said, her voice loud and
coarse. “My son was supposed to pick me up, but apparently he’s fast asleep in
his apartment. That boy. He’s the life of the party and sometimes I wonder it
doesn’t kill him.”

31st Annual Lambda Literary Nominees

“We stopped at his apartment on the way,” I explained.

“He’s dead to the world,” Joanne said. “We couldn’t wake him up
even though we made a real ruckus.”

“Well, sit down,” Louis said. “We’ll get another chair and some
coffee.”

“And plates. I’ll get plates.”

“We do need to make a phone call,” Joanne said.

“Yes, we need to go upstairs and make a call,” I said.

“All right. Fine. Put on your PJs if you want and come back
down.” Louis disappeared into their apartment while Marc went to find a chair.

We climbed the wooden stairs to my apartment, which was directly
above theirs. My apartment was small, not even six hundred square feet. Walking
in, the tiny living room was in front of us, boasting a fabric wrapped
loveseat, a black leather chair from IKEA, an antique armoire holding my
13-inch TV/VCR combo, my video collection (or at least part of it), a compact
stereo and a stack of CDs I’d gotten from a record club. Usually, a Hockney
poster hung on one wall, but I’d taken it down and put up a photo from my
parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

To our left was a Danish modern dinette set in front of the window.
Beyond that, in what was meant to be the dining area, was an old metal desk
under the corner windows. 

“It’s just darling,” Joanne said. “Absolutely darling.”

“Where am I going to sleep?” my mom asked.

“I thought I’d give you the bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Noah, that couch is too short even for you.” She was right even
though I’m not exactly tall. I was planning to put the cushions on the floor
and sleep on them there.

“You raised a gentleman, Angie. Giving his mom the better bed.
Such a sweet boy.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said. “Joanne, the phone’s right
here. You can call Rod.” I pointed out the cordless phone sitting on the black
Parsons-style table I’d bought at IKEA. I think it was called LACK. 

“Oh thank you,” she said, making herself comfortable on the
loveseat and picking up the phone. 

I glanced at my mother. She was eyeing her anniversary picture.
“Noah, can we get you something else for this spot? I mean, it’s sweet of you,
but you can’t want to look at this all the time? I don’t even have this picture
up.”

“Um, sure,” I said, planning to completely forget she’d said
anything since I didn’t need a picture to hang there. “Why don’t we take your
bags into the bedroom?”

Joanne left her message for Rod while we walked past her into
the bedroom. There wasn’t much in there except for my queen-sized bed with a
set of shelves behind it, creating a sort of headboard out of planks and
concrete blocks. There was a window, a wall of closets and a built-in set of
drawers next to the bathroom. There wasn’t anywhere to put my mother’s luggage
but on the bed.

“It really is a sweet apartment, Noah. Very economical.” She
leaned in close and added, “You didn’t need all that space anyway,” referring
to the three-bedroom house I’d shared with Jeffer.

“Thanks, Mom. Oh, I cleared out a drawer for you and there are
some hangers in the closet so you can hang things up.”

“Should I put my pajamas on?”

“You don’t need to—”

“What’s the number here?”’ Joanne asked.

I gave it to her. She repeated it into the phone.

“Isn’t that funny?” my mother said. “It used to be everyone had
their phone number right on their phone. Now no one does. It’s funny how much
changes. Anyway, I don’t mind wearing my pajamas, they’re very modest.”

“You know, we don’t even have to go back down. You’ve been up
all night—”

“Oh no, your friends seem so nice. And I am a little hungry.”

“Oh, this room is adorable. I love the built-ins,” Joanne said,
standing next to us and peeking in. “Noah, my pajamas are in my bag downstairs
in your car.”

“That’s all right. I have an extra pair.”

“We really don’t need to—” I started.

“Go away, we need to change,” my mother said, pushing me out of
the room and closing the door. I stood there a moment wondering why my mother
brought two pairs of pajamas for a four-night stay and then yelled through the
door, “I’m going downstairs.”

“All right, dear.”

When I got down to the courtyard, Louis handed me a mug of
coffee. “Well, well, you went to get one mother and came back with two.”

I just rolled my eyes at that. “You didn’t have to do this,
Louis. How long have you been up?”

“A couple of hours. But don’t worry, I wanted to check the
turkey anyway.”

The turkey sat just outside his front door in a giant pot
soaking in brine. And, just to make things more complicated, the giant pot was
in the center of a galvanized washtub filled with ice. They would have kept it
inside, but there wasn’t any room in their apartment, which had the exact floor
plan as mine. 

“So does your mother always pick up strange women?” he asked,
unable to not tease me.

“No, she does not. They had a good time on the plane and then
Joanne’s son didn’t show up, so we couldn’t just leave her.”

“Because there’s no such thing as a taxi at the airport?”

Actually, it was the one place in Los Angeles where you could
reliably find a cab. 

“Louis, be nice,” Marc said, coming out of the apartment with an
extra place setting.

“It is strange that you couldn’t wake the guy up.”

“Maybe not. We met his neighbor. She had some kind of party last
night. She wouldn’t say, but I think he was there.”

“Drugs or booze? What do you think?””

“One or the other.”

“I drank a lot in my twenties,” Louis admitted. “And I do mean a
lot. I always woke up.”

“Well, maybe it’s both?” Marc suggested.

“They’re welcome to dinner. When he wakes up.”

“Thank you, Louis, but she’s been promised Spago.”

“Are you implying my dinner isn’t going to be world class?”
Louis said with mock-offense.

“No, but you’ve never been on Tonight’s Entertainment
News.”

“Well, there is that.”

And then my mother and Joanne were coming down the stairs. My
mother had changed into lavender silk pajamas with cream-colored slippers while
Joanne wore a very similar pink pair with her sensible walking shoes. Each of
them carried a purse in the crook of an arm. Clearly, I was odd man out in my
black jeans, red-and-white Rugby shirt and jean jacket. 

Marc poured coffee for my mom and Joanne. “There’s cream and
sugar if you want.”

“Thank you,” Joanne said, diving into her purse and coming out
with a tiny bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She poured it into her coffee. “Angie?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“It will help you sleep.”

“Well, maybe half.”

As my mother poured Jack Daniel’s into her coffee, Louis came
out of his apartment with a large platter. Setting it down in the center of the
table, he said, “Fresh biscuits with gravy, scrambled eggs, uncured bacon.”

“Oh, it all looks lovely,” Joanne said. “My doctor would kill
me, but he’s not here, so who cares.” She grabbed the serving spoon and scooped
out a pile of biscuits.

“I see we’re being festive.” Louis nodded at the Jack Daniel’s
bottles. “Marc—”

“On my way.” And he scurried back into their apartment.

“So, Spago?” Louis said to Joanne.

She set down the serving spoon, her plate already stacked, and
said, “Yes. I’m so excited. Rod said it’s impossible to get reservations.”

“Almost impossible; you got in.”

I handed the serving spoon to my mother and she took some eggs,
a single biscuit with gravy and a strip of bacon. 

“What does your son do?” Louis asked.

“Script coordinator. Monumental Studios,” I explained, knowing
Joanne would be vague. Then I put some eggs and a strip of bacon onto my plate.

“Monumental, huh?” Louis said, raising an eyebrow. Monumental
Studios was one of the Gower Gulch studios that had a few sound stages, an
office building or two and a handful of bungalows. Never one of the original
big five, they now made the occasional low-budget, direct-to-video feature, but
mainly rented out their soundstages to TV shows. And, yes, it was very unlikely
that one of their script coordinators would be able to get a reservation at
Spago on Thanksgiving.

“You can’t only have that,” my mother said, as she scooped a
giant biscuit onto my plate. 

I decided to be gracious and say thank you.

Marc popped out of the apartment saying, “Who wants a mimosa?”
He had a bottle of champagne in one hand, with champagne glasses tucked between
his fingers, and a pitcher of orange juice in his other hand.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Irish coffee is enough for me,” said my mom.

“Well, I’ll have one,” said Joanne.

I took a bite of a biscuit slathered in gravy. It was really
much better than I’d expected. I was eating more than I had been for the last
few months, though I still didn’t have what you’d call a healthy appetite.

“So, Louis,” my mother said. “Noah says you’re the cook today.
What are your turkey tricks?”

“This year I’m soaking the turkey in brine.”

“Oh, I’ve read about that.”

“Last year he deep-fried it and nearly burned down the
building,” Marc explained. “It’s a relief that this year we’re only facing
possible flooding.”

“I didn’t nearly burn down the building. I scorched a banana
tree. A little.”

“Is there a grocery store open? Noah and I still have time to
make something, you know.”

“Oh my God,” Marc said. “Don’t even say that. We have so much
food in our place it’s ridiculous. Plus, Louis has everything timed to the
second. Adding or subtracting another dish will just throw everything off.”

Sensing he needed to change the subject, Louis asked, “Do you
plan to do a lot of sightseeing while you’re here, Angie?”

“Oh no, I just want to spend time with Noah. And, of course, I
want to get over to see the video store.”

“You haven’t seen it before?”

“I’ve seen it once, but that was years ago. I know he’s done a
lot to it since then.”

“Not that much, really,” I said. Renovation was one of the
excuses I’d used to keep her away once it was clear that Jeffer was sick and
that he’d lied to me about, well, so much. 

“What do you boys do for work?” Joanne asked.

Marc lit a cigarette, allowing Louis to answer first. “I’m in
charge of accounts receivable for Eagle Rock Surgical Center.”

“Is that a hospital?”

“Sort of. Not really. We don’t have a trauma center and you need
to schedule your procedure. We do a lot of plastic surgery and other electives.
Fertility procedures that can’t be accommodated in an office. Things like
that.”

“And what do you—” Joanne stopped cold and said, “Oh my God, you
were on Kapowie!”

Marc’s mouth fell open. “I was. How on earth did you know that?”

“I used to babysit my grandson, Bucky. My daughter’s boy. He
loved that show. You look just the same.”

That was a strange comment since Marc looked like a guy in his
mid-thirties even though he was still in his twenties. Did he look like a guy
in his mid-thirties when he was on the show? As a teenager?

“Of course, Bucky’s twenty-four now. He’ll be out of prison in
about nine months.” No one asked why her grandson was in prison. It seemed
impolite; and possibly something we didn’t want to know.

Joanne turned to my mother and asked, “Are you sorry you won’t
be having grandchildren?”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Louis said. “There’s a guy at
work, he and his boyfriend are having twins with a surrogate.”

“Really?” I said, a little surprised. I hadn’t known guys were
doing that.

“Oh yeah, they’re very excited.”

Of course, I had not even thought about children. I was really
much more focused on surviving until my thirtieth birthday. Which reminded me,
it was time for my AZT. I’d have to run upstairs after breakfast and take it.

The conversation turned back to Marc’s career as a child actor.
Joanne rattled off a list of famous actors asking if he’d met them. As though
there were a clubhouse somewhere for everyone who appeared on TV where they got
together and mingled. Talk then turned to politics. Joanne missed Reagan, which
was awkward as the rest of us did not. 

Upstairs, my phone began ringing.

“Oh thank God!” Joanne said. “That’s Rod. I’m sure of it.”

“I’ll get it,” I said, getting up.

“But he’ll want to talk to me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll give him the address. He’ll be here in half
an hour.” I left the table and hurried up the stairs. 

I got into my apartment and picked up the phone on its eighth
ring. I continued into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet.

“Hello?”

“Yes, I’m trying to reach Mrs. Brusco.”

“Uh-huh. Is this Rod?” I took my prescriptions out of the
medicine cabinet and shook the pills into my palm one by one. 

“No, it’s not Rod. This is Detective Amberson, Hollywood
Division.”

“Uh-huh?” A chill tickled the back of my neck. This might not be
good.

“Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Noah Valentine.”

“Are you related to Mrs. Brusco?”

“No, I’m just a family friend.” And barely even that.

There was glass on the sink for brushing my teeth. I rinsed it
out and filled it with some water while cradling the phone—

“Is Mrs. Brusco there?”

I swallowed my pills.

“Um, yes, she’s downstairs. Did something happen?”

“I’m afraid I can only talk to Mrs. Brusco.”

“All right. Hold on.”

I walked out onto the balcony that ran along my apartment. 

“Joanne, could you come up here?” I called down to the
courtyard. I watched as she got up from the table and hurried up the stairs.
This was bad. We’d left Rod’s apartment building a little more than an hour
ago. Best case scenario, he woke up, stumbled out into his courtyard and got
arrested for drunk and disorderly. Worst case scenario—

“Rod wants to talk to me?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t Rod. Wordlessly, I
handed her the cordless phone.

“Rod, I hope you know I’m just livid—what? No, this isn’t Mrs.
Brusco. I don’t use that name. Who is this?” She listened. “Yes, yes I am Rod’s
mother.”

She listened again. 

“No, no, he’s sleeping. He had a little too much fun last night
and he’s sleeping it off.”

Her mouth worked as she tried to say something more, then she
took a ragged breath and let go of the phone. It bounced against her body and
landed on the red tile of my balcony. She crumpled into a ball. I could hear my
mother rushing up the stairs.

I snatched up the phone and said, “Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” said the detective.

“Joanne just dropped the phone. She’s very upset. Is he dead?”

“I can’t tell you that. She’ll have to tell you.”

And that told me he was.

“I understand she was at her son’s apartment earlier this
morning?”

“Yes, she was. I was with her. And so was my mother.”

“We’re going to need to talk to her.”

Blurb:

It’s Thanksgiving, 1992 and Noah Valentine is late picking his mother up from the airport. When he arrives he discovers that she’s made a friend on the flight whose also waiting for her son. When the woman’s son doesn’t show up, they eventually take her home for breakfast with neighbor’s Marc and Louis. Soon after, they learn that her son has overdosed—or has he? Noah and his motley crew investigate over the holiday weekend; which includes a fabulous dinner, a chat with a male stripper, a tiny little burglary and some help from Detective Tall, Dark, and Delicious.

More about award-winning author, Marshall Thornton:



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Marshall Thornton writes two popular mystery series, the Boystown Mysteries and the Pinx Video Mysteries. He has won the Lambda Award for Gay Mystery twice, once for each series. His romantic comedy, Femme was also a 2016 Lambda finalist for Best Gay Romance. Other books include My Favorite Uncle, The Ghost Slept Over and Masc, the sequel to Femme. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America.

Sign-up for his newsletter at marshallthorntonauthor.com

Exclusive Excerpt: Dodging and Burning: A Mystery by John Copenhaver

Excerpt:

DODGING AND BURNING is a mystery set in 1945 about Jay Greenwood,
a gay WWII photographer, and the photo he takes of a murdered woman’s body.
When the body goes missing, the photo is the only proof of her murder. When he
shows the photo to Bunny Prescott, the debutant who’s in love with him, and
Ceola, the kid sister of his lover who is missing in the Pacific, the story becomes
as much about the photographer as the subject of the photo.

Prior to this excerpt, Jay has asked
twelve-year-old Ceola to look for her dead brother’s journal. She doesn’t fully
understand why, but to please Jay, she’s willing to look. This is from Ceola’s
perspective:

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Mama’s grief ruled the house with an iron fist after your death,
Robbie. Her first almighty decree was: All who live in this house must live
in silence.

Papa ordered me not to play records or listen to the
radio or make too much noise of any kind. I was even told to take off my shoes
before entering the house. The quiet was hell. I curled up on my bed for hours
at a time, yearning to hear the Andrews Sisters or Anita O’Day or The Shadow or
anything for relief. Despite his dutiful enforcement of the rules, Papa was as
much a prisoner of them as I was.

One night, he was taking in the news on the radio in
the living room, like he did, and I was sitting at the top of the staircase,
straining to hear, real happy for the distraction. Mama stormed into the room,
and the radio clicked off. I heard her say, “I have a headache, Bob. I’ve
already asked you to turn it down once.”

I heard Papa’s heavy footsteps, and then the radio
came back on but louder—“World News Today.
Brought to you by the Admiral Corporation makers of Admiral Radio, America’s
Smart Set—”

She snapped, “Turn it off! I’ve had
enough bad news for one lifetime.”

The radio went dead. Seconds later, I heard Papa
trudge out of the house. He didn’t come back that night. Soon after that, he
began spending evenings and weekends digging holes, planting trees, surrounding
the house with a forest of saplings. Although it was intended as a memorial, it
surely felt more like he was trying to wall us in.

Mama’s second decree was: When Robbie is spoken of, he must be
spoken of in if-then statements.

Mama would carry your photo with her around the
house, setting it in the kitchen while she cooked or propping it against a book
in the living room while she knitted. If I entered the room, she would begin
her usual litany of conditionals. “If Robbie had survived the war,” she’d say,
“he would’ve lived in Royal Oak, to be close to his family. If he had survived,
he would’ve married a nice girl—that Donna Smith or Rachel Richfield or the
King girl—or no, not the King girl, she’s too easy with the boys.” She was
certain whoever you would’ve married, the two of you would’ve had beautiful
children. She even chose names for the ghost grandchildren—Robert Jr. and Mary
Jane. Little Mary Jane had blond curls just like she did as a young girl.

“If he had returned from the Pacific,” the chant
went, “he would’ve studied law, or maybe medicine. He certainly would have gone
to UVA or Virginia Tech. He would’ve loved his community and, particularly, his
church, where he would have become a lay reader. He would’ve joined the Kiwanis
Club like his father. He would’ve set a good example. He would’ve taken care of
us, as we got older. He would’ve held my hand when God calls to me in my last
hour.”

Her third and final decree was: No one, under any
circumstances, could enter Robbie’s bedroom or touch his belongings.

Mama made it into her own personal shrine to you.
Her grief was greedy, claiming your stamp collection, your saved Dixie Dew
bottles, your favorite red sweater with the hole in the sleeve, your Roy Rogers
cowboy hat with gold trim, the bone-handled pocket knife Papa gave you when you
were twelve, your baseball mitt, the pocket watch you inherited from Grandpa
that was inscribed with Great Grandpa’s name (Terrence Henbone Bliss, 1854), and the
broken-in deck of cards you used to teach me pinochle. All of them became holy
relics.

For months, I thought that if I went into your
bedroom, sirens would blast and police would rush in, seize me, and haul me off
to jail, hands cuffed and hunched over in disgrace. Papa made me promise I
would never, ever disturb your room. “If Mama finds out,” he said,
“we’ll both be in terrible trouble.”

But the limbo of mourning became too much for me,
and, in the worst sort of way, I wanted to claim something of my own from
Mama’s police state.

About midsummer, I said to hell with the rules and
started poking around. That’s when I found the stack of magazines under your
nightstand and started sneaking off to read them. But of course, I hadn’t come
across your journal.

Right after Jay had shown Bunny and me the hiding
place in the tree, and Bunny had marched off in a tizzy, he said, “Cee, I have
to know Robbie’s journal is safe. Please. Before anyone else finds it. It’s
killing me.”

His blue eyes were on fire. It was the first time
I’d seen him frightened.

I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to give him your
journal, but I sure wanted to find it. I wanted to keep it safe. I suppose what
I really wanted was to keep it for myself, because deep down, I wanted to know
you better. So when I got home, I crept upstairs and down the hall to your
room. Mama was running errands and Papa wasn’t home from work yet.

The door to your room was cracked—you remember, it
was warped and never came to—so I nudged it open. The afternoon sun was peeking
through the limbs of that old locust tree outside your window and throwing
flecks of light across the floor. I hesitated, worried Mama might come home and
catch me, but also worried I was doing something sacrilegious, like spitting in
a baptismal font or walking across a grave. I moved forward on tiptoes. With
each step, the floor groaned like demons calling out to me—What are you doin’,
Ceola? You’ll get in big trouble. Mama and Papa will never forgive you. You’re
desecrating the memory of your brother.

The slanted ceilings and dormer windows and sideways
light gave your room a sadness I still feel when I’m by myself in the church
sanctuary, fixing flowers or replacing candles for Sunday services. But those
red cowboys galloping across the walls, lassos whipping through the air, herding
and roping cattle, reminded me that it was your space, your sanctuary, not
Mama’s. Between the windows, I saw your small, beat-up dresser with both of our
initials carved into the side of it, displaying bits and pieces of your life,
from school awards to postcards from Virginia Beach. Along the bottom of the
mirror, you had wedged several school photos of friends, maybe there was even a
picture of Jay—no, surely Mama would’ve seen it and thrown it in the wood
stove.

I rummaged under your bed and riffled through your
closet—nothing but sports equipment, schoolbooks, and dusty clothes. Underneath
the neatly folded T-shirts and boxer shorts in your dresser, I found even more
magazines—Dime Detective, Astonishing Tales, Weird Stories, and a
stack of comics. I’d struck gold. Right there, on the floor, I fanned out this
new treasure trove so I could see all of it, forgetting about how angry Mama
and Papa would be if they caught me.

I picked up the comics and let the pages fall
through my fingers, reading bits of dialogue and glancing at the pictures. The
handsome fedora-ed detectives, holding their pistols close to their hips, spat
phrases like, “It’s time to meet your
Maker. I hope you’re wearing your best dress.” Or, “Baby-doll, you’ll make a
beautiful corpse.” And the femme fatales, wrapped like maypoles in red
and black satin gowns, every curl on their head as tight as a spring and eyes
aimed like twin Colt .38s.

I can still hear you, clear as a bell, reading in a
low voice so you wouldn’t draw Mama and Papa’s attention—It was a hot, damp,
mean August day, and the city streets were crying black tears. Detective Rod
Magnum leaned back in his chair, unbuttoned his collar, and drifted into an
uneasy slumber. When he heard the click-clack of her heels and smelled her
perfume through the open door, he sat up and straightened his tie. Sweet
trouble was coming his way . . .

When you read to me, you always held out at the
cliffhanger—a dame with a knife dangling over her head or the hero slipping
from a crumbling ledge, some melodramatic climax or other—and made me beg for
the ending. You loved to make me beg. I remembered you reading “A Date with
Death” to me, but stopping just before the final page. Oh, I really wanted you
to finish it! But it was just as well you didn’t. When you were finally done
reading, we’d talk the stories over, going on about the parts we liked and
picking at the parts we didn’t, our talks all out of joint if we thought the
story was a cheat.

As I flipped, I caught a glimpse of something wedged
between the fluttering pages of an issue of Dime Detective. I thought
it was a paper doll, but then it was something I hadn’t expected—a male
underwear model. You must’ve cut him out of a Sears catalog, trimming his
outline, not sacrificing a finger or a flip of hair or a fold of fabric to the
scissors. In other magazines, I found more cutouts of men, from smiling boys
with their hands on their hips to cool customers trailing ribbons of cigarette
smoke to muscle men, Charles Atlas sorts, flexing their greased biceps and
sporting sculpted pompadours. I didn’t understand what they meant. How could I
at that age? I just imagined you bent over magazines and catalog pages, tongue
caught between your teeth, concentrating as you traced the outlines of these
men with Mama’s sewing scissors. I knew they were secret, and I knew I wanted
to keep them safe—and far from Mama’s and Papa’s eyes.

Blurb:

In a small Virginia town still reeling from World War II, a photograph of a beautiful murdered woman propels three young people into the middle of a far-reaching mystery.

*Nominated for a 2019 Barry Award and Lambda Literary Award*

A lurid crime scene photo of a beautiful woman arrives on mystery writer Bunny Prescott’s doorstep with no return address—and it’s not the first time she’s seen it. The reemergence of the photo, taken fifty-five years earlier, sets her on a journey to reconstruct the vicious summer that changed her life.

In the summer of 1945, Ceola Bliss is a lonely twelve-year-old tomboy, mourning the loss of her brother, Robbie, who was declared missing in the Pacific. She tries to piece together his life by rereading his favorite pulp detective story “A Date with Death” and spending time with his best friend, Jay Greenwood, in Royal Oak, VA. One unforgettable August day, Jay leads Ceola and Bunny to a stretch of woods where he found a dead woman, but when they arrive, the body is gone. They soon discover a local woman named Lily Vellum is missing and begin to piece together the threads of her murder, starting with the photograph Jay took of her abandoned body.

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More About Author John Copenhaver

As Ceola gets swept up playing girl detective, Bunny becomes increasingly skeptical of Jay, and begins her own investigation into the connection between Jay and Lily. She discovers a series of clues that place doubt on Jay’s story about the photograph. She journeys to Washington, D.C., where she is forced to confront the brutal truth about her dear friend—a discovery that triggers a series of events that will bring tragedy to Jay and decades of estrangement between her and Ceola.

https://www.dodgingandburning.net/

Copenhaver is the Barry Award- and Lammy Award-nominated author of the historical mystery Dodging and Burning (Pegasus, 2018). He writes a crime fiction column for Lambda Literary called “Blacklight.” He’s been awarded five DCCAH Artist Fellowships. He’s published in CrimeReads, Electric Lit, Glitterwolf, PANK, Washington Independent Review of Books, New York Journal of Books, and others. He chairs the 7-12 grade English at Flint Hill School and lives in DC with his husband. 

www.jcopenhaver.com
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