Tequila Mockingbird (Sinner's Gin #3)

[Ulysses]

Tequila Mockingbird (Sinner’s Gin 3)

The only problem with this book is that the title is way too common...I actually know another other who published a humor book related to drinks and literature with the SAME title.

It had been a white since I’d read the last of the Sinner’s Gin books by Rhys Ford—Sinner’s Gin being the name of a celebrated rock back wiped out in a car crash—but not entirely. The first two books are about the survivors.

But book three in this loosely-knit series doesn’t start with Miki or Damien, it starts with a crusty old hippie named Frank Marshall rescuing an abused adolescent from a dumpster behind his recording studio in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

So it took me a while to remind myself of the key players in this series—especially since the action leaps forward a decade from the opening scene without warning when we first meet Connor Morgan, the SFPD SWAT-team leader and eldest son of the Morgan clan.

Ah, the Morgan clan. That’s when the memories started flooding back. There are two gay Morgans, two of the eight children spawned by the dark-haired Donal and his firebrand consort Brigid. And apparently, much to everyone’s surprise, there’s a third gay son.

It is Connor Morgan, the eldest, apple of his da’s eye, who first meets Forest Marshall in the midst of a scene of violence and death. Now an adult and the adopted son of the old hippy, Forest’s life is turned upside down—again—and he finds comfort in the massive arms of a very surprised Connor Morgan. Because, it seems, Forest pushes a button in Connor that no one, Connor least of all, expected to be pushed.

At first I was rolling my eyes over the apparent “gay for you” trope rearing its implausible head. But it’s not like that, and Connor’s struggle to get past the denial in his own heart is expressed lovingly and eloquently through Rhys’ Ford’s pen.

And, oh the Morgan family. Never such a family exist, but Ford makes us wish they did. As the newly-bereft and endangered Forest finds himself caught up in his feelings for the apparently straight Connor, he is equally caught up in the oddly combative love of the Morgan siblings for each other and their parents. In the midst of this new chaos he begins to feel a sense of safety rare in his life. With each new bit of mayhem, he is drawn deeper into the ugliness of his own miserable childhood, but also into the protective outrage of Brigid Morgan and her feisty brood.

Eventually, the surviving members of Sinner’s Gin make their appearance, and this offers us one of the best moments in the book’s narrative—stepping away from all the police action and into the world of musicians and their passion.

Ford is such a good writer. This book is crisp and fast-paced, and even the gooey romantic parts (and the sexual bits, which are, after all, part of the genre) are driven by the characters of Forest and Connor and by the multiple narrative threads that come together to weave a strong story of redemption and love.

And there will be a fourth book, in which, it seems, the other gay Morgan, Quinn, will finally get the spotlight.

Can’t wait.