A topical, tropical mystery replete with scenes of entertaining buddy comedy.
Two police detectives return in a drag-inspired whodunit set in Florida.
Charmingly mismatched sleuths Nick Scott and Norm Malone embark on a new adventure in this sequel, this time in sultry Key West, home to “chickens everywhere you walk, people greeting strangers as if they were good friends, and no one seeming to have a care in the world.” Nick, host of the eponymous TV chat show The Gay Detective, met the slouchy, heterosexual Norm in the previous installment of the series, in which they teamed up to catch the notorious killer The Reaper while becoming good friends and roommates. Now, as a thank-you gift from the Chicago Police Department, they’re vacationing together in Key West. Of particular interest to Nick is an annual New Year’s Eve performance by the local drag diva Sho Yu, set to descend upon her adoring fans in a giant red shoe to formally announce her engagement to strapping fiance Matt. To the shock of onlookers, the shoe catches fire on the way down, injuring Matt, and within moments Sho Yu turns up missing. Officer Raphael Perez recruits Nick and Norm to lend their talents to the investigation, one that becomes even darker when Police Commissioner Tom Moss is found dead in his office. The two detectives begin to piece together what increasingly looks like a series of connected killings by a sinister and enigmatic network. Stripper Merlot and a bevy of sassy drag queens (Mimi Peters, Sin Onhym, and Polly Saturates) turn up to crack some jokes and complicate the plot. Along the way, Nick and Norm each finds romance, discovering once again that “sex is the best drug out there and doesn’t require a script” and encountering a number of unforeseen hurdles. In this enjoyable caper, Michaels (The Gay Detective, 2015) displays a superb sense of humor, and he deploys it more successfully here than in his last book, using it to balance Nick’s complex emotions and the story’s suspense. Nick’s fraught hookups are effectively woven into the texture of the plot (“Raphael certainly knew how to push my buttons and that scared me. We hardly knew each other”). But his reaction to Norm’s own liaison—particularly the intensity of his anger—may strike some readers as more convenient to the narrative than psychologically realistic. But this is a quibble: Michaels’ beguiling new tale is an amusing and gripping way to spend a few hours.
A topical, tropical mystery replete with scenes of entertaining buddy comedy.Pub Date: May 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9983242-0-3
Page Count: 242
Publisher: La Mancha Press
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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