The Happy Month, (Dom Reilly 3), by Marshall Thornton

[Ulysses]

The Happy Month (Dom Reilly 3)
By Marshall Thornton
Published by Kenmore Books, 2024
325 pages
5 stars

Two Los Angeles murders, one in 1948, the other in 1976, occupy Dom Reilly as he works for Lydia Gonzalez at The Freedom Agenda in Long Beach. A man has spent twenty years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. An old man lost to dementia keeps telling his family he murdered his fiancée fifty years earlier.

The year is 1996, and Dom quickly sees the similar motifs in both cases. Gay men, fearing discovery and the ruining of their lives, turn to women friends to cover for them so nobody will find out. As Dom Reilly searches for the truth in these long-closed cases, we learn a history that has generally been erased for the convenience of those who found it uncomfortable. In the midst of these two tragedies there is, oddly enough, one happy story. It, too, has been erased, only to be teased back into the light by Dom’s persistence.

My older brother was born in 1948. I came out to my parents in 1976. In 1996 my partner and I adopted two children. All these dates resonate with someone of my generation, and Marshall Thornton acts as a guide to all those others for whom such a past is unimaginably far away. The two murders haunt Dom’s daily routine, even as his own more recent past lurks with its own shadows.

Dom ponders the fickleness of happiness, even as he is possibly happier than he’s ever been before. Living with his partner Ronnie Chen, he marvels at his own good fortune, fearful that his past might intrude and spoil it. Dom is a nicer man than he was, but I think that’s due to this current happiness. There’s a wry humor to his observation of the world, much gentler than the man we know from Thornton’s earlier books.

The mystery plots are masterfully spun out, seeming to intertwine because of the sad historic patterns that both stories share. Something I found intriguing is that Dom understands how therapeutic his work is for him, while also understanding that both Lydia and Ronnie seem to know this, even though he himself remains something of a mystery to both of them. One part of Dom’s happiness is the awareness that, come what may, Ronnie and Lydia will be there for him.

All this combines to create a satisfying book, while making us hungry for the next one.