Book picks similar to
The Yellow Canary by Steve Neil Johnson
historical
mystery
m-m
mm
The Little Death
Michael Nava - 1986
A burnt-out public defender battling alcoholism, Rios has reached a crossroads in his life. While interviewing Paris in jail, Rios goes through the motions, but notices that Paris is far more polished and well-off than the usual drug suspects. Paris is mysteriously bailed out—but a few weeks later, he turns up on Rios’s doorstep. Skittish and paranoid, he admits to using heroin and says he’s afraid that his wealthy grandfather wants to murder him.Rios tries to help Paris get clean, but when Paris is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, Rios is the only one who considers foul play. Determined to find Paris’s killer, Rios knocks on San Francisco’s most gilded doors, where he discovers a family tainted by jealousy, greed, and hate. They’ve been warped by a fortune someone’s willing to kill—and kill again—to possess.At once an atmospheric noir mystery and a scathing indictment of a legal system caught in the maws of escalating corruption, The Little Death chronicles one man’s struggle to achieve true justice for all.
Lake on the Mountain
Jeffrey Round - 2012
It seems just the thing to bring Dan closer to his noncommittal partner, Bill, a respected medical professional with a penchant for sleazy after-hours clubs, cheap drugs, and rough sex. But the event doesn’t go exactly as planned. When a member of the wedding party is swept overboard, a case of mistaken identity leads to confusion as the wrong person is reported missing. The hunt for a possible killer leads Dan deeper into the troubled waters and private lives of a family of rich WASPs and their secret world of privilege. No sooner is that case resolved when a second one ends up on Dan’s desk. Dan is hired by an anonymous source to investigate the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of the groom’s father. The only clues are a missing bicycle and six horses mysteriously poisoned.
Perfect Score
Susan Roebuck - 2010
But drifter Sam's two aims are simply to earn enough money to pay his sister's medical bills and to hide from the world his reading/writing and speech disability. At this time the word "dyslexia" is generally unknown so to most people he's just a "retard." From the severe knocks life's dealt him, Sam's developed a tough outer coating and he has no time for a spoilt, selfish guitar player. Despite his defects, Alex's love for Sam never wavers and when Sam unexpectedly disappears, Alex begins a somewhat bungling quest to find him, only to discover that Sam has a fearful enemy: Alex's powerful and influential yet sociopathic uncle. As Alex spirals downwards towards alcoholism, many questions need answering. Just why did Alex's evil uncle adopt him at age eleven yet deny him any affection? And what's the mystery behind Alex's father's death? Both seem to face unbeatable odds. Are they doomed to follow separate paths forever?
This Rough Magic
Josh Lanyon - 2011
Brett's convinced his partner-in-crime sister is behind the theft -- a theft that's liable to bring more scandal to their eccentric family, and cost Brett his marriage to society heiress Juliet Lennox. What Brett doesn't count on is the instant and powerful attraction that flares between him and Rafferty.Once before, Brett took a chance on loving a man, only to find himself betrayed and broken. This time around there's too much at risk. But as the Bard himself would say, Journey's end in lovers meeting.Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: male/male sexual practices.
Mahu
Neil S. Plakcy - 2005
At 32, the hero of Māhū has reached the pinnacle of his profession, detective on the Honolulu Police Department's homicide squad, based at the Waikīkī station. But a difficult murder case, as well as turmoil in his personal life, is about to threaten everything he has worked for.A life-threatening drug bust in chapter 1 makes Kimo realize that it's time to stop lying to himself. He's drawn to the Rod and Reel Club, a gay bar in Waikīkī, where he has a couple of beers and begins the long process of accepting his attraction to other men. Leaving the club, though, he stumbles onto two men dropping a dead body in an alley, and he launches himself into a nightmare where his private life becomes public news.Kimo's pursuit of this case takes him from the seamy underside of Chinatown to the elegance of million-dollar homes in Maunalani Heights, from gay bars where young men stride naked down runways to bloody crime scenes.
The Master of Seacliff
Max Pierce - 2006
Brought up by a harsh and stingy aunt and uncle in New York City after the death of his parents, young Andrew dreams of life as an artist in Paris. He has talent enough but lacks the resources to bring his dream to fruition. When a friend arranges for him to work as tutor to the son of a wealthy patron of the arts, Andrew sees a chance to make his dream come true and boards a train heading up the Atlantic coast. His destination is the estate called Seacliff, where he'll tutor his new charge and save his pay to make the life he dreams of possible. But danger lurks everywhere and nothing is quite as easy as it seems.Seacliff: A dark and brooding cliff-top mansion enshrouded in near-eternal fog, dark mystery, and suspicion - perhaps a reflection of the house's master. An imposing Blackbeard of a man, Duncan Stewart is both feared and admired by his business associates as well as the people he calls friends. And his home, in which young Andrew must now reside, holds terrible secrets, secrets that could destroy everyone within its walls.
Honeytrap
Aster Glenn Gray - 2020
There’s just one catch: Gennady’s abusive boss wants him to honeytrap his American partner. Gennady doesn't want to seduce his new American friend for blackmail purposes… but nonetheless, he can’t stop thinking about kissing Daniel.FBI agent Daniel Hawthorne is delighted to get to know an agent from the mysterious Soviet Union… and determined not to repeat his past mistake of becoming romantically involved with a coworker. But soon, Daniel finds himself falling for Gennady. Can their love survive their countries’ enmity?
The God in Flight
Laura Argiri - 1995
He meets 31-year-old art professor Doriskos Klionarios, who was sold in infancy by his Greek prostitute mother to a British lord. Together they embark on an emotionally reckless courtship, made all the more difficult by social bigotry and human jealousy.
The Ghost of Buxton Manor
Jonathan L. Ferrara - 2016
He spends his days reading, roaming, and trying desperately to recall his former life. Hope is restored when a boy his own age moves into the manor—a boy he quickly becomes fascinated by. This peculiar, modern boy is the first person that Rupert has been able to reveal himself to, and just might be the key to help him discover his mysterious past.The Ghost of Buxton Manor is a young adult, LGBT paranormal fiction centered around historical figures Rupert Buxton and Michael Davies—the inspiration behind the real Peter Pan.
Amuse Bouche
Anthony Bidulka - 2003
Back in Saskatoon, he meets a client who may be the bad guy and a quarry. The vile sister, the best friend, the colleague, the ex-lover, the lawyer, the priest, the snoopy neighbour - are they involved? Or is someone else lurking in the shadows?
Reckless
Jess Whitecroft - 2017
The puzzle only gets more perplexing when they take the ship and find an English girl in leg irons. It’s an old and popular love story – the pirate and the virgin who steals his heart away, only this time the pirate is the virgin and the girl isn’t a girl at all. She is James ‘Jem’ Exley, thief, molly, occasional actor and full time transvestite. Jettisoned to the New World in order to spare his aristocratic family any further disgrace, Jem is glamorous, flamboyant and fascinating to Henry, a former quiet country boy who became a pirate when his merchant vessel was robbed. At only nineteen, Henry is determined to prove himself a man one way or the other, and is astonished to find that nothing makes him feel like more of a man than his increasingly reckless passion for Jem. As their love leads them into trouble, the mysterious circumstances of Jem’s capture lead Henry deeper into a mystery that not only upends his whole world, but sees them running for their lives across the Caribbean. Stolen jewels, scheming Captains and devious drag artists collide in this steamy eighteenth century romp from the author of These Violent Delights and Going Sasquatch.
Faster Than the Speed of Light
Lucius Parhelion - 2010
Doctor Col Courtland didn't expect his brightest new graduate student to be a blue-collar widower scarred by the Battle of the Bulge. Neither of them anticipated the complications of academic careers conducted beneath the unsympathetic gaze of the F.B.I.Life in experimental physics may have grown much more exciting for everyone at Clarence Tenn Polytechnic since the Manhattan Project, but Frank and Courtland share illegal desires that make exciting lives dangerous. As the race for the H-Bomb begins and the Red Scare looms, the pair's intellectual triumphs and strengthening friendship are both threatened by the attraction growing between them. They will need to be brilliant in new ways if they expect to overcome the one threat that moves faster than the speed of light.
The Slow Road to Hell
Grant Atherton - 2017
Nathan Quarryman, the lover he walked out on years before and now the local Chief of Police, is tasked with investigating the crimes. The two men must find a way to settle their differences, repair their broken relationship, and work together to bring the killer to justice.
The Sallee Rovers
M. Kei - 2010
The Sallee Rovers, Book One of The Pirates of the Narrow Seas Trilogy is an expertly crafted swashbuckler brimming with authentic detail and fully realized portraits of life at sea, written by a tall ship sailor and internationally acclaimed poet.