Books shelved as gay-tective-novels: Home Fir by Kate Sherwood, Soul Breaker by Clara Coulson, Reasonable Doubt by Gregory Ashe, Paterny Case by Gr...
Contents:
THE GAY DETECTIVE: HOMOSEXUALY CRIME FICTN
There isn’t enough space this article (or, ed, a rather long history book) to explore the long and shameful lerary history of amg gay characters as eher victims or villas.
Fast forward through several s of margalizg gay voic or treatg gay romance as eroti, and the days, we’ve fally got mastream publishers wakg up to the fact that queer stori have a vast and growg dience, although we ntue to be bted to the outsized ntributns of small prs such as Bywater Books. Of his but, Rs Thomas has wrten, “I had a gay protagonist long before I had a tective protagonist, ” and while this layed the path to publitn, bee for some absurd reason publishers ed to thk women on wanted straight hearthrobs—I subm to you as evince the ENTIRE world of fan fictn—by the time Thomas published Firewatchg, he did so to near-universal acclaim. Now, I’m close to fishg U Up?, her ice-ld sophomore novel of love and loss LA, and I’m rather annoyed at havg to stop readg to wre this blurb.
In 1986 Los Angel, homophobia is an all-time high, and an ultra-nservative anizatn is ready to fan the flam of hatred wh a ballot iative to round up HIV posive Angelos and put them mps. The Savage Kd brgs a new meang to “Be gay.
BT GAY MYSTERY
Plakcy about the history of homosexualy crime fictn, and then make sure you're signed and ment below for a chance to w a py of The Next One Will Kill You! And before I wrote my first mystery featurg a gay tective, I read Joseph Hansen, Michael Nava, Mark Zubro, and Nathan Aldyne. Jt as Christie, Sayers, and Gardner were among the pneers of the ntemporary mystery, Hansen, Nava, Zubro, and Aldyne were the lears rporatg gay characters to crime fictn.
Their books opened doors to gay culture at a time when homosexualy was nsired a psychiatric disorr and a sure way to break a mother’s heart. He was one of the very first mastream thors to wre about a gay tective—an surance vtigator named Dave Brandstetter.
GAY DETECTIVE NOVELS BOOKS
His wasn’t the first gay tective to h prt—that honor, I believe, belongs to Pharoah Love, a sexy, sassy Ain-Amerin police tective workg Manhattan, thored by Gee Baxt. His seven mysteri starrg gay Hispanic attorney Henry Rs foc a great al on the AIDS epimic and s effect on men, their iends, and their fai, and they n be heart breakg.
Mark Zubro also has a strong social nscience, but his books are leavened wh humor and a bg sarsm directed agast homophob and school admistrators, among other awful sorts. Schoolteacher Tom Mason and his lover (and eventual hband), baseball star Stt Carpenter, are amatr slths who solve crim and fight for jtice schools and gay neighborhoods, focg on muny, iendship, and fairns all thgs. Zubro’s send seri foc on Pl Turner, an openly gay homici tective—a rary at the time of the first book, Sorry Now, published by St.
GAY DETECTIV
Zubro has said that he created Turner to show another si of gay life: a voted father whose kids e first. Mart’s Stonewall Inn mysteri, helmed by gay edor Michael Denneny. Mart’s was, as far as I know, the first mastream publisher to set up a gay imprt, wh Richard Stevenson, Grant Michaels, and Michael Craft among s stable of thors.