Somebody Killed His Editor (Holmes & Moriarty #1) in Q&A with Josh Lanyon

Jul 07, 2013 Natasha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: hilarious, favorites, 100-stars, hello-officer, oh-my-god, boys-who-like-boys, loveable-characters, serious-sexual-tension, cray-zay-ending

In my top 3 books I've read all year.

There will be spoilers in this review. Oh and swearing. LOTS OF SWEARING AHEAD. Probably.

Josh Lanyon's writing is unbelievable. Actually unbelievable. If I could chose to write like any one person, it would be him. It's so damn engaging, his writing is honestly like a siren's call. You can't escape or back away from it. He sucks you in and holds you there. It's amazing. Amazing. The imagery he uses is so exciting and not overdone. I've read a lot of books whi In my top 3 books I've read all year.

There will be spoilers in this review. Oh and swearing. LOTS OF SWEARING AHEAD. Probably.

Josh Lanyon's writing is unbelievable. Actually unbelievable. If I could chose to write like any one person, it would be him. It's so damn engaging, his writing is honestly like a siren's call. You can't escape or back away from it. He sucks you in and holds you there. It's amazing. Amazing. The imagery he uses is so exciting and not overdone. I've read a lot of books which are written in paragraphs like "And then he said ________, and then he did __________, and then the scenery looked like ________." Josh Lanyon's writing is nothing like this. It's so practiced and so smooth. GOD is it smooth (what an odd things to say).

Rita made a sound like seals do when they see sardines flying their way. Her husband gave her a warning look.

Seriously, who writes like this? God, it's good.

Christopher Holmes is fucking hilarious. Everything he does and thinks is hilarious. He plays the roll of a 39 year old has-been writer, out on a writing retreat to try and coax Krass into signing him for more of his Mrs. Butterswith books. Everything Christopher thinks and does is funny and literally had me busting a gut laughing throughout this entire book.

The mystery was so good. Like, I had no idea WHO-DUN-IT. It was fun learning all the clues along with our favorite hero Christopher. I made so many guesses and assumptions but never really got it right.

I had no idea from the beginning who Christopher's love interest would be (ignoring book name which I then noticed later...). Which was refreshing and fun! Speaking of which.... J.X. What a total badass babe. Babezilla. What a unique, cute relationship. And so dramatic! Oh so dramatic. The sex scenes were so good and the fact that they had a sexual past but Christopher had once broken J.X.'s heart... was a cool and sweet twist in the road.

“I blinked at her while she continued to yap at me like a Pekingese after too many generations of inbreeding.”

Overall, the writing is the fucking shit, the story and plot was fan-fucking-tastic, the characters are fucking awesome, and the whole book was a gay ol time! Read this immediately.

It occurred to me that there were no lights on. Anywhere. Not in the entire building.
They were all in bed before daybreak. And they called themselves writers?
Amateurs.

...more

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Nov 02, 2012 Ilhem rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: m-m, josh-lanyon, mystery, fun

This book was exactly what I needed and I read it with a constant smile on my face : amused, ironic, fond, knowing, goofy, sometimes exploding into laughter...
Indeed, there is a lot to smile at:

The setting is a conference reuniting an entire cast of writers and it was fun to have an insight into their world and into the publishing industry.
The mystery was a big wink at Agatha Christie and I dived happily into the intrigue, suspecting everyone until the very end.

Holmes is self-centered, bitter an ...more

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Jan 14, 2014 Debbie McGowan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-best

"Poker poised, I paused. Not a line I would have written myself, but rather accurate under the circumstances."

Somebody Killed His Editor is the first novel in Josh Lanyon's 'Holmes and Moriarity' series, and aside from its tongue-in-cheek exposé of all the delights of modern crime fiction, it is also a great romping murder mystery, interwoven with a suspense-filled 'will they, won't they' romance. In short, it's one of those books that ticks boxes for lots of readers, and it's really rather clev "Poker poised, I paused. Not a line I would have written myself, but rather accurate under the circumstances."

Somebody Killed His Editor is the first novel in Josh Lanyon's 'Holmes and Moriarity' series, and aside from its tongue-in-cheek exposé of all the delights of modern crime fiction, it is also a great romping murder mystery, interwoven with a suspense-filled 'will they, won't they' romance. In short, it's one of those books that ticks boxes for lots of readers, and it's really rather clever.

Christopher Holmes is the forty year old author of Miss Marple style crime fiction, who, as any authors reading will readily identify with, spends a lot of his time whilst reluctantly engaged with the real world comparing it to his stories. Christopher's character (and Moriarity's also) is so convincing that on occasion I had to remind myself that his books were a, ahem, work of fiction.

Christopher's work is losing popularity and his agent forces him to attend a writing weekend where he can sock his editor with his 'next big thing'. The event is being held at an isolated lodge and in attendance are all the bright young things of trendy, disposable fiction—the 'Bad boys and pink ladies [of] Dick and Chicklit'. The descriptions of the pink ladies are hilariously insulting, as is much of what Christopher thinks of his associates, and this is first person narrative so we get to read the whole experience from his very cynical, and amusing, world-weary perspective.

I really like Josh Lanyon's writing style. Some books that I read I do so in order to admire their literary prowess; others I read for the story. In both cases I'm aware of the act of reading, but the way Josh Lanyon writes I forget that I'm reading—mostly. I have one issue, and it's the persistent starting of sentences with participle phrases. I don't mind this on occasion; a little variety in sentence structure is good. Indeed, the quote I started this review with wouldn't work anywhere near as well if the participle phrase came later. However, after the first few incidents of 'Turning, she did such and such...' or...well, OK, maybe I'm being over-sensitive as I tried to find another example, thinking it would take no more than a couple of page turns. Anyway, if I were Josh Lanyon's editor he probably would kill me, because they really need to go.

Notwithstanding, this is an excellent, well-crafted story and a great beginning to a series that will have you hooked. It's fiction within fiction, with commentary on fiction. It's witty, clever, funny, gripping, heart-warming and sprinkled with suspense from beginning to end. It is fiction with characters who happen to be gay rather than gay fiction (hurrah) and the conclusion is not easy to predict, but even if you do figure it out you won't be disappointed.

So, five stars for the book, but one star for the end coming at 93% of the Kindle edition. Another issue with this format is Amazon insisting on landing the reader at the beginning of Chapter One, so all of the front matter (copyright, dedication, lovely cover) is missed. Likewise, at 93% you are asked to rate the book, even though the remaining 7% includes 'About The Author' and some excerpts from other books (by other authors). This doesn't work for me and I would rather have links to those excerpts elsewhere, so that I'm not disappointed when a story I'm enjoying so much comes to an untimely end. I know I'm not alone in this, but it's not (all) the author's fault. I mention it merely to alert others, and it does not detract from this being an excellent novel. ...more

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