Rough Pages

August 5, 2024
Rosen’s immersive third mystery featuring gay San Francisco ex-cop Andy Mills (after The Bell in the Fog) captures the joys and fears of being queer in 1950s America. When bookshop owners Howard Salzberger and DeeDee Lamb disappear, Andy worries not only for their safety but also that the subscriber list for their mail-order gay book service could fall into the wrong hands. To help prevent that, Andy forms an alliance with gossip reporter Rose Rainmeyer, hoping to gain access to some of Rose’s leads and ensure she doesn’t out him. Meanwhile, Andy’s protective urges cause conflict with his partner, Gene, who manages a local gay club. Rosen buttresses his solid suspense plot with a rendering of midcentury San Francisco that feels realistic in its depiction of the dangers facing the city’s gay residents but refreshingly optimistic about their ability to lead fulfilled lives. Readers interested in queer history will be especially delighted. Agent: Joy Tutela, David Black Literary.

September 15, 2024
The third mystery in the Evander Mills series finds PI Andy once again involved with the wealthy Lamontaine family, whose members are all queer. Pretending to be straight, the Lamontaines are planning to adopt a baby girl, until the butler, Pat, who is also queer, explains that he might be outed, which would possibly compromise the family's secret. He has been associated with a San Francisco bookstore that operates a book subscription service. The store's co-owners have gone missing, as has its list of subscribers, which, if in the wrong hands, could out every person on it. No sooner has Andy determined the Mafia might be involved than one of the co-owners is found murdered. Rosen has written another agreeable mystery set in 1950s San Francisco. The book's focus is as much on the dangers and injustices of queer life in that period as on the central mystery, but the context is important, and the verisimilitude of that is well done. Readers will look forward to the next volume.

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September 15, 2024
The gay community has bigger problems than nothing to read when a bookstore's owners go missing. It's 1953 San Francisco, and Evander "Andy" Mills, a gay ex-cop turned private eye, has been summoned by a concerned friend: A bookstore that sells queer books has inexplicably closed for a week. Did the post office tip off the feds about the store's monthly book service, which sends "obscene material" through the mail? And why is there no sign of the shop's two owners, who seem to have vanished along with their list of book-service subscribers, all of whom are ripe for exposure or blackmail if their names get into the wrong hands? As Andy starts working the case, his search for the truth coincides with a need to conceal his own truth, including the scandalous reason he was kicked off the police force. The novel plays like a counterpoint to the muscularity of iconic 1950s noir. Sweet-tempered gumshoe Andy's narration is about as hard-boiled as a scrambled egg, and while the book is inescapably an homage to the classic detective novels of San Francisco and elsewhere, it offers the central satisfaction of a cozy mystery: entr�e into a stalwart and loving community bent on achieving justice. There's a bit too much sighing and eye rolling, and as worthy as the book's messages are, their airing can be somewhat ponderous ("These are our stories, and we need to read them, no matter what the government says"). But the plot is well oiled and, gratifyingly for the romantics out there, spiked with tender interludes that pay tribute to forbidden love. A mystery for throwback-loving fans of Dashiell Hammett and Douglas Sirk alike.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.