Book picks similar to
Pretty Boy Dead by Joseph Hansen
mystery
joseph-hansen
lgbt
fiction
Someone Killed His Boyfriend
David Stukas - 2001
But Robert can't resist Michael, even though the man's motto is Money Can Buy Happiness. And reformed megaslut Michael can't resist strapping southerner Max Crawford, who has agreed to marry him in a wedding that promises to be New York's ultimate gay event.While Michael busies himself booking the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Homosexual �and ordering enough exotic flowers to strip a tropical rainforest, Robert commiserates with Monette, who shares his envy of Michael, his affinity for practical jokes, and his inability to find a lasting same-sex love. Little do they know that what lies in store for Michael is far from wedded bliss.The big day finds Michael, Robert, and Monette mingling with hundreds of Michael's closest friends, plus a crowd of drag queens in rustling taffeta. Curiously, the groom's husband-to-be is nowhere to be found... and neither is Michael's priceless Matisse painting.What's a jilted lover to do? Purchase the finest rifle money can buy and vow to kill the SOB, that's what. With a reluctant Robert in tow, Michael tracks Max all the way to Provincetown, where, amidst throngs of beautiful thong-clad boys, Max turns up dead before Michael can shoot him. Primary suspects Michael and Robert swiftly go into full Hardy Boys mode, accompanied by their own personal Nancy Drew, Monette. When the clues indicate that the culprit is a murderous Bette Davis impersonator, Robert must endure the ultimate test of friendship. Does he dare go undercover with Michael in a drag revue to smoke out the real killer? Does he dare not to? Before you can say, "accessory to murder," Robert and Michael have made their drag debut in heels, sequins, and enough makeup to make Joan Collins look pasty, determined to find the real killer before the killer� and the cops� find them!
Gaywyck
Vincent Virga - 1980
Classic in style, Vincent Virga creates a world as authentic as anything penned by DuMaurier, retaining the creaking ancestral mansion and mysterious and brooding master of the manor, while replacing the traditional damsel in distress with the young and handsome Robert Whyte. Vincent Virga has been called "America's foremost picture editor." He has researched, edited, and designed picture sections for more than 150 books, including "Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States" and the full-length photo essay "The Eighties: Images of America." He is also the author of "A Comfortable Corner." He is working on a third novel, "Theatricals.
The German
Lee Thomas - 2004
1944 - Barnard, Texas. At the height of World War II, a killer preys on the young men of a quiet Texas town. The murders are calculated, vicious, and they are just beginning. Sheriff Tom Rabbit and his men are baffled and the community he serves is terrified of the monster lurking their streets. The only clues the killer leaves behind are painted snuffboxes containing notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn toward a quiet man with secrets of his own. Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced, and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
Fool's Errand
Louis Bayard - 1999
In searching for the man of his dreams, Patrick Beaton crosses paths with other searchers, in an inventive debut novel that is reminiscent of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City.
Common Sons
Ronald L. Donaghe - 2000
The son of a preacher, Tom reaches out to Joel in friendship, and their bond to each other becomes as tight as brothers. Joel's openness to his own feelings and acceptance of himself (a healthy trait instilled by his loving parents) allows him to explore some new and confusing feelings he has for Tom. His confusion clears, however, after a reckless drinking bout ends with a very public kiss from Tom. But Tom's torment of sin and self-incrimination are far from over. Common Sons, the first in a series entitled "Common Threads in the Life," is a moving tale of self-discovery, love, and finding the courage to come out and come to grips with the truth in the face of hatred and adversity.
War Boy
Kief Hillsbery - 2000
On the bus headed out of town they hook up with Finn and Critter, a couple of speed-freak boyfriends who take a shine to both of them. They also meet Ula, who is mourning the death of her fiancé and taking a trip across the United States in his memory. The five become fast allies, united by personal loss and by the allure of intimacy only friends in the throes of conflict can understand. When Jonnyboy drops out of sight, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world he has been introduced to inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires.
Lover's Knot
Donald Hardy - 2009
With his best friend, Alayne, in tow, Jonathan returns to the estate to take possession, meet the current staff, and generally learn what it’s like to live as the landed gentry now. He’d only been there once before, fourteen years earlier. But that was a different time, he’s a different person now, determined to put that experience out of his mind and his heart….The locals agree that Jonathan is indeed different from the lost young man he was that long ago summer, when he arrived at the farm for a stay after his mother died. Back then the hot summer days were filled with sunshine, the nearby ocean, and a new friend, Nat. Jonathan and the farmhand had quickly grown close, Jonathan needing comfort in the wake of his grief, and Nat basking in the peace and love he didn’t have at home.But that was also a summer of rumors and strange happenings in the surrounding countryside, romantic triangles and wronged lovers. Tempers would flare like a summer lightning storm, and ebb just as quickly. By the summer’s end, one young man was dead, and another haunted for life.Now Jonathan is determined to start anew. Until he starts seeing the ghost of his former friend everywhere he looks. Until mementos of that summer idyll reappear. Until Alayne’s life is in danger. Until the town’s resident witch tells Jonathan that ghosts are real. And this one is tied to Jonathan unto death…
Probation
Tom Mendicino - 2010
Sentenced to probation and thrown out by his wife, he spends his week as a traveling salesman, and his weekends at his mother's house where no questions are asked--and no explanations are offered. To clear his record, the State of North Carolina requires Andy to complete one year of therapy without another arrest. He attends his sessions reluctantly at first, struggling to comprehend why he would risk everything. Answers don't come easily, especially in the face of his mother's sudden illness and his repeated failure to live as an openly gay man. But as Andy searches his past, he gets an opportunity to rescue another lost soul--and a chance at a future that is different in every way from the one he had envisioned.With profound honesty, sharp wit, and genuine heart, this debut novel portrays one man's search--for love and passion, acceptance and redemption--and for the courage to really live.
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.
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.
Allegiance: A Dublin Novella
Heather Domin - 2012
Tiring of his double life, William travels to Dublin for one last assignment: infiltrating a group of IRA supporters. But these "rebels" are not what he expected — and one of them, a firebrand named Adam with a past as painful as his own, shakes William's uncertain footing to its foundation. As the crisis in Dublin escalates, William treads a dangerous path between the violence in the streets, the vengeance of the Crown, and the costliest risk of all — falling in love with the man he was sent to betray.
Lord Dismiss Us
Michael Campbell - 1967
The novel deals with the love affair between two boys, together with the internal politics of the school itself. Carleton, a sixth former loves Allen, a boy two years his junior. At the same time the headmaster is trying to enforce a policy against such liaisons.At the time of writing it was a contemporaneous work. As such it now depicts a school at a period in history. It was published in the same year that homosexuality between consenting adults was legalised in the UK.
Death by Silver
Melissa Scott - 2013
But the latest Londoner to seek Ned’s magical aid gives him pause: Mr Edgar Nevett, an arrogant banker, is the father of the bully who made Ned’s life hell at boarding school. Nevertheless, Ned accepts the commission to ensure the Nevett family silver bears no ancient or modern curses, and then prepares to banish the Nevett family to unpleasant memory again. Until Edgar Nevett is killed by an enchanted silver candlestick—one of the pieces Ned declared magically harmless.Calling on his old school friend Julian Lynes—private detective and another victim of the younger Nevett—Ned races to solve the murder, clear the stain on his professional reputation, and lay to rest the ghosts of his past.Assisted by Ned’s able secretary Miss Frost, who has unexpected metaphysical skills of her own, Ned and Julian explore London’s criminal underworld and sodomitical demimonde, uncover secrets and scandals, confront the unexpected murderer and the mysteries of their own relationship.In Death by Silver veteran authors Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold introduce a Victorian London where magic works, influencing every aspect of civilized life, and two very appealing detectives.