Buck Baxter and the Disappearing Divas, by Geoffrey Knight

[Ulysses]

Buck Baxter and the Disappearing Divas
Geoffrey Knight
Published by the author, 2017
Four stars

The second of this series set in the fictional (but very New Yorkish) Wilde City in the 1920s manages to maintain the lively, camp-noir mode of the first book, while expanding the storyline and adding some background complications. The most important of these is Buck’s boyfriend Harry and his difficult relationship with his adopted parents, which in turn leads to strife in their relationship.

There is a delightful sense of diversity in these books, which is of course entirely out of sync with the “real” world of the American roaring twenties where segregation by class and race and sexuality was the norm (even if plenty of people crossed the lines). Buck has a new assistant, Stella Starling, a little person we met in the first book, who has a big mouth and is also a highly successful, um, lady of the evening.

With the first book as his sort-of origin story, Buck continues his pursuit of justice when a wealthy Mughal entrepreneur seeks out his help to solve the mysterious disappearance of an opera star a scant week before her opening night at his palatial theater. As was true of the first book, the actual detective story is really just the structure around which all of the interesting details of Buck’s life are anchored. Buck is not a spiritual guy, but he is kinda existentialist, and seeks inner peace and truth through smoking weed (did they call it pot in the twenties?) and getting naked with a blind Chinese matriarch on her floating riverside opium den.

Like I said, not really very like the actual 1920s in New York (at least the one we all were told about).

I was intrigued, and a little disappointed that, in this book, Buck seemed to be a bit more of a jerk than I remembered, especially when dealing with his boyfriend, Harry, scion of a powerful old-money family. Then again, Harry is far less charming in this book than before, and therein lies the strife that fuels the questions that are not quite answered. I do need to like the main characters in the books I read…and it was a bit of a struggle this time around. Being a good-looking smart-aleck isn’t really enough for me. I need a good guy, even if he’s rough around the edges. Maybe Harry needs to top for once. That might smooth out those rough edges.

There is no cliffhanger here, but of course an unexpected reveal at the end is the hook for book three—which, alas, is NOT READY YET. Get with it, Mr. Knight. We’re waiting.