Let's Get Criminal - Lev Raphael

[PaperMoon]

What would you do if you were forced to suddenly share office space with a good looking new upstart external academic being ushered into a fast-track career path ahead of you (with an annual salary several rungs above yours). What would you do if you suddenly discovered that your partner/lover of ten years had a romantic past with this same fellow – details of which your partner has never disclosed before until now when you felt that you had shared just about everything there was to be shared between the two of you. What would you do if your lover invites this fellow to dinner without prior consultation and expects you to get the house in order and to have a three course banquet spread for this special guest. And then what would you do if your partner confesses of his mixed feelings about this good-looking upstart former flame and informs you he now wants to explore / work out these same conflictual emotions?

I don’t know about you, but I would be quite understanding if University lecturer Nick Hoffman had decided to throw a major hissy fit, flipped off Stefan his longtime partner, blow-torched the dinner, poisoned the wine and stormed off to Acapulco in search of some latino remedial-affair. Instead, Nicky casts himself as Isabel Archer in Portrait of A Lady (with a heavy dose of Alexis Carrington) and brings off the dinner party with snarky aplomb, touting the virtues of Stefan and their rapturous 10 year life domesticity together in a grandstand bid to head off this upstart Dr Perry Cross. And the outcomes of this event – the stuffed pasta shells were a roaring success, the gorgeous guest leaves with tail between his legs, Stefan is very angry declaring Nicky a total jerk. And then everything is thrown into further madness when Perry Cross is found dead on campus the next morning – with Nicky (with whom everyone have been commiserating over being supplanted in several ways by the luscious Perry) becomes the homophobic campus police’s suspect numero uno. And why was Stefan not asleep in their bed on the night Perry perished?

It took a couple of chapters to get into the meter of the writing style – it’s drier and the dialogue definitely more wryly humorous than other gay whodunnits I’ve read to date. However – I found it hard to not like Nicky (whom I imagine has a voice sounding like Maud from Golden Girls) who has to navigate career maelstroms with his departmental colleagues (several truly awful examples of sharks clad in academic gowns living in ivory towers), painful interrogations with bigoted police detectives, relational upheaval with partner Stefan. Cheered on by his BFF, Nicky races against time to clear his name and Stefan’s before the police pounce – trawling through an increasing suspect list of folk who may want Perry Cross dead … and the body count starts to rise ….

Readers who like their mysteries with guns, blood and gore, violence and mayhem will find none of such typical crime elements being featured in the hallowed grounds of a mid-western university campus. However – I can attest from personal experience that menacing danger and murderous rages can simmer just below the slights and snubs found in academic political game-plays and power jostles. The denouement and reveal of the whodunit at the end came with some suspense, danger and the nearest the book to actual violence – the author managed to keep me guessing until the end as to the real motive for why Perry had to be murdered (despite tons of valid reasons why everyone – Nicky included – would want to do so).

This is not a romance title (think Agatha Christie with a decidedly gay twist) – so if you’re expecting hot man-on-man action verging on erotica – I suggest you try something else. I however, enjoyed my introduction to Professor Nicky Hoffman and look forward to reading his further adventures in Mr Raphael's series.