Hidden Identity, by Adam Carpenter

[Ulysses]

I reviewed this for Prism Book Alliance a while back, and the author has asked me to reivew the second in the series. I realized I'd never gotten to post the review here.

I am particularly fond of the detective sub-genre in the gay lit world, simply because it follows in a great tradition of such literature while offering, like Neil Plakcy’s superior “Mahu” series and Greg Herren’s Chanse MacLeod series, cops/private eyes who are gay. This very fact offers emotional opportunities for gay readers who continue to be largely ignored by the world of mainstream detective fiction.


What I particularly like about Adam Carpenter’s Jimmy McSwain is that he manages to be a Hell’s Kitchen tough guy—all Irish pubs and street-smart swagger—while also being a modern, gentle, show-tune loving gay guy. He has no shame at being gay, no doubts about his sexuality. I happen to know the neighborhood in New York where Jimmy’s life story is set, and also that it’s beginning to replace Chelsea as the new “young gay” neighborhood, just as Chelsea replaced the gay Greenwich Village of my twenties and thirties. Carpenter knows the city and captures the feel of it vividly and with a minimum of fuss. His fine writing pays homage to the noir novel, while keeping a crisp contemporary style that suits the time and place and characters. He largely avoids stereotypes and is one of those authors for whom every character is interesting and worth his effort.


Jimmy has baggage in the form of a dead father, whose murder he witnessed as a teenager. It was that murder that propelled him into being a detective. But he also has a loving family and a kinship network in the community that keep him anchored and largely happy. Again, in this he is like Plakcy’s Hawai’ian cop Kimo Kanapa’aka. In both instances the importance of family gives the narrative solid emotional grounding as well as a sense of authenticity.


I don’t want to delve into the actual plot of this book, because it is too interesting to give away any details. Let’s just say I liked McSwain easily and immediately. He’s a good guy and a smart detective. His damage doesn’t make him dysfunctional, even though it sets up hurdles for him of which he is painfully aware. His vulnerability on the romantic front just makes him more sympathetic, without in any way making him weak.

“Hidden Identity” isn’t an m/m novel—there are glimmers of romance, hopes of romance even, but that seems to be something that eludes Jimmy McSwain.For now, at least.


This is the first book in what clearly promises to be an excellent series. While it is a stand-alone story, there are threads that are left unraveled at the end, suggesting directions for the next volume’s narrative. Let’s hope Carpenter continues to deliver at this level of writing and plotting, because Jimmy McSwain has the potential to hold onto his readers for a good long time.

[Ulysses]

Stage Fright
By Adam Carpenter
Four stars

The third of the Jimmy McSwain detective stories brings us back to the familiar streets of Broadway and Hell’s Kitchen in New York, where Jimmy grew up and where his mother has worked as a head usher for twenty years.

Jimmy is still haunted by the murder of his policeman father fifteen years earlier, when he himself was just a teenager. As is Carpenter’s pattern in this series, Jimmy’s ongoing effort to unravel the mystery around his father’s killing is the underlying plot counterpoint to this book’s primary mystery. Both stories are personal for Jimmy in this installment: Wellington Calloway, owner of the theater where Jimmy’s mother works, enlists Jimmy to solve an unnerving mystery surrounding the upcoming opening of a new play—Triskaidekaphobia—on which he has staked the finances of the theater. Jimmy finds himself deeply involved in the private relationships of this rich New York family, whom he’s known from a distance most of his life because of his mother’s association with the Calloway Theater.

Once again we meet the handsome, ambitious and closeted police captain, Francis X. Frisano, who is destined to play a complicated role in Jimmy’s life. In spite of the deep connection these two men have, it seems that the tension between Jimmy’s obsession with his father’s death and Frank’s obsession with his career will always be a hurdle to any sort of ongoing relationship. Carpenter builds their bond again in this book, but adds still more impediments as Jimmy moves closer to his dream of solving his father’s murder.

Carpenter’s writing style is almost tongue-in-cheek noir, evoking the likes of Sam Spade while presenting Jimmy as a young gay man totally comfortable with his sexuality. Jimmy’s love of the gritty streets of New York, along with his ability to step into the elite world of Manhattan without hesitation, makes him interesting and admirable. There is plenty of the romantic potboiler in Carpenter’s writing, and I love that Jimmy is truly a romantic, because it mitigates his sadness and his resistance to having a relationship. He sees the beauty in his emotionally compromised situation. He loves his mother and sisters. He loves Frank Frisano, too, but that’s just part of the pain.

I really like this series. Can’t wait for book four.

[PaperMoon]

Sounds like a great new series for me to start. Thanks Uly.