Ladymol's Review

I had to be very circumspect reviewing Fatal Shadows (the first in the series) because I didn’t want to give away the fact that Jake, the homophobic cop, becomes a feature in Adrien’s life at the end. The whole tension of Fatal Shadows depends upon whether the killer is Jake or Bruce (the other man Adrien takes up with). I was so hoping that the killer wouldn’t be Jake. I suspected that Adrien’s feelings for him were very confused—how right I was.

This novel starts with Jake calling Adrien to say he can’t make a date. Nothing unusual in that: he’s a cop, and cops have weird schedules. But what gradually emerges is the most original and amusing relationship you can imagine: Jake seems to love hanging out with Adrien, but he won’t touch him (other than one memorable arm around a shoulder). The very thought of kissing Adrien seems to make him slightly nauseous, and he constantly professes a pretty homophobic heterosexuality. Not a good basis for a gay relationship really.

Adrien, on the excuse of needing some peace and quiet to write (huh, do other writers get that then?), takes off to the ranch he was left by his Grandmother (mentioned in Fatal Shadows). Adrien is narrating the books, so you’d think you were getting honest self-analysis. Yeah, like… not! We know the real reason Adrien is suddenly taking off. We know that his feeling for Jake now run very, very deep, and he can’t handle Jake’s confusing and hurtful responses to him.

Never mind, we love Adrien, so we go along with his emotional denials. They’re very amusing, and Lanyon handles this with a deftness of touch that leaves your heart aching for Adrien at the same time as laughing wryly at his stupidity. He’s such a bright guy for all problems but his own!

Adrien arrives at the ranch he’s not seen for twenty-four years (I love the scene where a reproachful woman in a local shop accuses him of not coming for his grandmother’s funeral, and he points out that he was eight and didn’t have his drivers licence) only to find a dead body in the roadway. By the time the local police get there, it’s gone, and thus we are plunged delightfully into the latest Adrien English mystery.

I particularly love the way that these books are like layers upon layers. The author is, apparently, a gay bookseller who lives with an (ex) LAPD cop and writes mystery stories about a gay bookseller who loves an LAPD cop and writes mystery stories. It’s very cleverly done, and I love that Lanyon (through Adrien) uses the fact that he has a wide knowledge of fiction to talk, for example, about Joseph Hansen and his Dave Brandstetter series. As those of you who read these reviews will know, we adore Dave and the whole Brandstetter series. Hansen is constantly referred to in reviews as “the worthy successor to Hammett”. Well, Lanyon is the worthy successor to the late Hansen. He’s taken the gay detective genre (are there enough gay detective novels to form a genre?) and given it a delightfully refreshing twist. The sex is more graphic in these books than in Hansen or Stevenson (the Don Strachey novels), but it’s still sparse compared to many modern gay novels. However, that only makes it more erotic when it does appear: so delicately sprinkled into the plot that it falls like sweet rain on arid earth.

Jake must be the most original creation in gay fiction I’ve read so far. That he resists Adrien so hard when all the time we can see that he’s head over heels for him, but that Adrien can’t seem to see this at all makes the most delicious tension throughout the novel. I didn’t read this book, I devoured it. Thank goodness Lanyon is writing the third in the series: “The Hell You Say”. 

He has a great website by the way:

http://www.joshlanyon.com/

You must buy these books (not easy to get hold of Fatal Shadows in the UK), read them and then email Lanyon and badger him about finishing the next one. I intend to.

I need my Adrien/Jake fix.

Badly.

Cerisaye's Review

If you liked Fatal Shadows the first book (in what I hope will be a multi-volume series) featuring mouthy bookseller and soon-to-be-published gay mystery novelist Adrien English, I guarantee you’ll love this follow-on.  It’s a more accomplished effort that displays Lanyon’s greater maturity as a writer. 

Adrien, the slender sleuth with the dodgy ticker, and Jake Riordan, the hunky LA homicide cop buried so deep in the closet (says Adrien bitterly) he doesn’t know where to look for himself, have a deliciously complicated relationship.

Adrien is 32, openly and happily gay as a goose, looking for love and commitment, a companion to share his life and a warm willing body in his empty bed.  Namely Jake, prime hunk of all-American beef, with leonine eyes, golden hair and big arms Ade longs to feel holding him tight as prelude to greater intimacy.  Riordan, however, prefers to think he’s straight.  Except when the hunger gets too much then he puts on the leathers to punish himself for his unnatural desire with a bit of S&M.  Gay sex he can do, but love & affection with another man would compromise his precious masculinity and force him to admit he’s gay as Adrien.

It’s two months since Jake saved Adrien’s skin when he went up against the Gay Slasher.  Jake put his life on the line and his career at risk, all he-man protective.  WE know Jake cares for Adrien.  Adrien THINKS he does, but isn’t prepared to put up with Jake’s ambivalence because it’s driving him crazy with unrequited passion and no affection or intimacy.  He’s lonely and frustrated, and his creative juices have dried up under the strain.  Struggling with that difficult second novel (hah!), he decides to escape the distractions of Pasadena and the pressure of Jake’s hot/cold attitude, for the peace and tranquillity of the ranch in Mother lode country left him by his old granny, along with the legacy that underwrites his comfortable lifestyle. 

However, things don’t go according to plan. When Adrien arrives at the old homestead there’s a body at the gate, and once more he’s called upon to turn detective for real, putting his own life in danger.  By the time the local sheriff arrives, however, the body has vamoosed.  Then Adrien finds grass (NOT the green kind) growing all over his hillside and a bunch of archaeologists from a local college digging on his land at Spaniard’s Hollow.

Of course, in a crisis the first person Ade turns to is Jake, sexually confused, self-hating King of Denial.  Except when he phones, Jake has company.  Of the female kind.  Adrien is understandably angry and very jealous.  Is it time to say good-bye?  And what about Kevin, the cute grad student who clearly has the hots for Adrien?  Is he the one?

When Adrien & Jake are alone together it’s so good between them.  I love the way Jake calls Ade ‘baby’ and the small details of intimacy like Adrien getting off on watching Jake lick his candy coated fingers.  There’s a nice Dakota & Benny vibe in the old ranch house, and the way we’re told what they’re cooking and eating reminded me also of Dave Brandstetter & Cecil.  But Jake is so frustrating!  You’d think being straight was some kind of holy virtue the way he wants so badly to hold onto it.  Anyway those labels don’t matter and feelings have no gender.  I just love how this book takes their relationship onto another level as Jake discovers sex isn’t at all what it’s about.  I hope Lanyon gets book #3 finished and published soon as I NEED to know what happens next.  Highly recommended.