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NEW RELEASE BLITZ: Ex by Alicia Thompson (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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NEW RELEASE: Hunt in the Night by S.J. Coles (Excerpt)
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AUDIOBOOK TOUR: Point Blank by Morgan Brice
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AUDIO TOUR: Point Blank by Morgan Brice (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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SERIES REVIEW: Boystown Books 1-3 by Marshall Thornton
Boystown Books: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries – Marshall Thornton
Finalist for the Lambda Award in Gay Mystery, Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries takes place in Chicago during the early 1980s. Haunted by his abrupt departure from the Chicago Police Department and the end of his relationship with librarian Daniel Laverty, Nick Nowak is a beat cop-turned-dogged private investigator. In this first book of the series, Nick works through three cases: a seemingly simple missing persons search, an arson investigation, and a suicide that turns out to be anything but. While working the cases, Nick moves through a series of casual relationships until he meets homicide detective Bert Harker and begins a tentative relationship.
Rating:
4.5 Stars – perfection is only half a step awaySoundtrack: Boys Town
Artist: Babes
Album: Leave Your Leather On
Boystown Books: Three More Nick Nowak Mysteries – Marshall Thornton
The Boystown Mystery series continues as Chicago private investigator Nick Nowak finds himself involved in three new cases. He’s asked to help a young man who murdered his stepfather but refuses to assist in his own defense, hired to find the murderer of a dead porno star, and, in a case that traps him between the two men he loves, must search for a serial killer’s only living victim. Set in the second half of 1981, Nick juggles his deepening relationship with Detective Bert Harker with the return of his ex, Daniel Laverty. Which man will he choose? Or will he be able to choose?
Rating:
4.5 Stars – perfection is only half a step awaySoundtrack: OOO
Artist: Karen O
Album: Crush Songs
Boystown Books: Two Nick Nowak Novellas – Marshall Thornton
In the two novellas that make up the third book in the popular Boystown Mysteries private Investigator Nick Nowak works two challenging cases and grapples with an even more challenging personal life. In Little Boy Boom, Nick’s car explodes when a thief attempts to steal it. Realizing the bomb was meant for him, Nick sets out to discover who wants him dead only to find that the list of possible suspects is longer than he’d like. When he begins to run out of suspects he wonders if the bomb was truly meant for him. Little Boy Tenor finds Nick investigating the murderer of a church choir’s star tenor, while at the same time his friend Ross asks him to discover the truth behind his lover, Earl Silver’s mysterious death. As he juggles the two cases, he becomes increasingly disturbed by what he learns.
Rating:
4.5 Stars – perfection is only half a step awaySoundtrack: Slipping Away
Artist: Moby
Album: Hotel
A bit strange to call a series set in a decade you lived through as historical, but I considered Boystown by award-winning author Marshall Thornton as such. My first series from the author, The Wyandot County Mysteries, was entertainingly bitchy, and another modern historical (if we can call it that) set in the 2000s.
The usual Regencies and Victorians are not working for me as of late, so I’m hoping to dive into more books set in the mid-century and later eras.
Boystown starts in 1980, with prequels set in 1979. It chronicles the life of ex-cop-turned-PI Nick Nowak. He’s 33 years old and in the prime of his life. He’s good at his job. His business is going well and he’s free of debts He lives in a garden apartment, a.k.a. basement apartment in downtown Chicago in the known queer neighborhood called Boystown. Every weekend, he works as a bouncer at a gay club owned by a friend.
The storytelling is one of the best and a top favorite in my reading history. Nick has a very compelling voice and a charismatic character. The books are written like episodes in a TV series. Also, Marshall Thornton has always been fantastic at flavoring his stories with period-specific events, culture, technology, and so on. They have a palpable patina of time and they always feel authentic and lived-in.
Nick’s cases intertwine with his private life, and threads from the previous books are continued or mentioned in the succeeding. There are many recurring characters or references to past events that Nick would follow up on or would impact the current story. We see Nick’s everyday habits and work routine, plus the more action-packed moments.
My favorite part is the cases. Almost all mystery series tend to default to murder as the crime, so I loved that Nick’s cases vary from background checks to missing persons to arson to car bombing, and sometimes protection for rock stars. I loved that they realistically portray the variety of work a PI handles.
And Nick’s one hell of a PI! He doesn’t give up until he’s satisfied, not even if his client feels the matter is already settled. He’s got wily investigation skills and is not above lying, impersonating someone, seducing the gullible, or breaking inside an apartment to get answers.
Nick knows he’s a looker and enjoys an active sex life. There is no shortage of people eager to throw themselves at him and Nick’s not inclined to say no. From informants he’s interviewing, to corporate lawyers, to friends with benefits, beat cops mistakenly apprehending him while undercover as a homeless man and even the very person he’s investigating, as well as orgies. A couple of times, he asked himself if he was giving off some kind of pheromones.
Nick is also pining for his ex, Daniel Laverty. They had a bad breakup after a homophobic attack that left Daniel with a broken cheekbone. Daniel wanted to report what happened, but Nick, then a closeted cop, refused.
Nick eventually develops a relationship with a closeted police detective, Bert Harker. Theirs is an open relationship, which means Nick still goes around fucking any willing body. Nick is also torn between Daniel, who recently reunited with him, and Bert, currently living with him. The series is not romance, and it didn’t make promises of a romance HEA, so the open relationships didn’t bother me.
What bothered me was the APPALLING lack of protection in all the sex scenes. There’s also some scenes where the characters take drugs. It was a wild, hedonistic era and Nick is in the thick of it. In contrast, contemporary MM books make it a point to mention rubbers or an exchange of health status.
Knowing what we know now of the 80s and the AIDs epidemic, it is heartbreaking that some of the characters here were among the early victims, and Nick and his friends have no clue yet of what is happening. It’s going to hit very close to home. I almost don’t want to read the succeeding books because the impact is going to crush Nick.
As mentioned earlier, Boystown is written as a continuous chronicle of Nick Nowak’s life and should be read in order. I had grand plans of reviewing the entire series until I learned there are 13 books. It’s a lot for me, so I’ll probably do three books at a time.
The first three books of Boystown opens a highly engrossing mystery series that captures a pivotal era through the eyes of a gay PI. Blending Chicago grit and 80s sex appeal with LGBTQ+ issues and noir mystery, these stories are authentic, steamy and as irresistable as Nick Nowak himself.
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BOYSTOWN: Kindle
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BLOG TOUR: Dead Serious Case #4 Professor Prometheus Plume by Vawn Cassidy (Giveaway)
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RELEASE BLITZ: Dead Serious Case #4 Professor Prometheus Plume by Vawn Cassidy (Giveaway)
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One Line Reviews Of Some Books I Read This Year (July – December 2023)
This is a round up of the books I read on the 2nd half of this year that I’m too lazy to do a full review.
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REVIEW: Lust and Other Drugs by T.J. Nichols
Mytho: Lust and Other Drugs – T.J. Nichols
Police officer Jordan and dragon shifter Edra might have to work together, but they don’t trust each other—even if sparks do fly between them.
If anyone finds out Jordan’s a mytho sympathizer, it could kill his career. No one can know that he frequents the satyr dens and uses the drug Bliss. A dead satyr might not get much attention, but two dead humans who appeared to overdose on Bliss? That shouldn’t even be possible.
And it might not be an accident.
Edra, the Mythological Services Liaison, has been covering up mytho crimes to protect the community’s reputation. With a mayoral election looming, the last thing his people need is a scandal.
To get a murderer off the streets, Jordan and Edra will be spending a lot of time together, and it won’t be easy to keep up with their deceptions… or to keep resisting each other.
Book 1 in the gay urban fantasy series that follows Jordan and Edra as they solve crime and figure out how to improve Mytho and human relations. For readers who like dragon shifters and forbidden romance.
Lust and Other Drugs is the first book of Mytho Investigations and my first book by T.J. Nichols. It’s part dragon shifter romance, part police procedural, part commentary on humanity.
The book opens by explaining how mythological creatures, a.k.a. mythos, came to be in our world. The mythos are from a world called Tariko which imploded into ours when physicists fucked up their hadron collider. At first, it was pure chaos, and then slowly, some European countries came to recognize creatures who can communicate as people and the mythos gradually integrated into society.
It’s been ten years since the collapse. In the US, some states and cities are mytho-friendly, and many are not. Jordan Kells lives in San Francisco, where the current mayor is anti-mytho, and many crimes against the mythos are swept under the rug. Jordan is the rare police officer who acknowledged mythos are people and he is determined to work their cases seriously.
A case involving satyrs and their infamous drug, Bliss, had him crossing paths with Edra Tendric, a.k.a. Knight Tendric, the mytho liaison. Edra piqued my interest immediately. At first blush, he’s nothing more than a glorified social worker, helping mythos integrate, find schools and jobs, and help them with their cases.
The mythos greatly respect Edra. They call him by his title, Knight. And he really is a knight! He’s no longer allowed to carry a sword, which is a pity because he would cut a fine figure in complete regalia. Apparently knights can do lots of things, from protecting dragons, making sure people follow the rules to super secret black ops missions.
The world-building here could be info-dumpy. Understandable as many things needed to be explained, from satyr culture to what happened to Atlantis to Edra’s backstory. It’s a fantastic world to get lost in, the kind where you can create an infinite number of stories.
As much as I love the fantasy and lore, the circumstances surrounding the murder mystery was painful. The story showcased the worse side of humanity: the bigotry, xenophobia and violence towards those who are different. Some mythos could pass as humans, but some, like satyrs, were seen as nothing more than animals.
The story is in dual POV. In Edra’s POV, we see insights on mytho nature versus human nature, particularly religion, culture, and sex. The scenarios in the book reminded me a lot of what’s happening in some countries. There is even a side plot about the imminent election, and it’s a close fight between the pro and anti mytho mayoral candidates.
One key theme of the series is how no one cares about mytho cases, especially if the perp is human. And this is one fight Jordan refused to give up. Our boy set out to investigate the satyr deaths with everything he got. Sadly, said investigation and the conclusion of the case wasn’t well-executed. This is on the writing itself rather than on Jordan.
The scene that touched me the most was when it hit Edra that Jordan was indeed genuinely determined to get justice for the murdered satyr. Our dragon knight almost burst into tears. They, the mythos, matter to a human!
The romance was a slow-burn second chance, especially for Edra, who lost his mate in the collapse. It’s a good enough start, but my interest was more on Edra and Jordan doing their jobs and navigating the fragile trust they built with each other and the other human and mytho characters. Although, I am curious to see how they fare when their secret relationship becomes public, so I’ll be reading the rest of the series.
Lust and Other Drugs is a well-conceived urban fantasy. It’s a very fascinating world, even if it’s a troubled one, with intriguing characters I’d love to read more about. All in all, a tale worth a dragon knight’s loyalty!
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bitsSoundtrack: Matter
Artist: Yatch
Album: I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler
If you like my content, please consider using my Amazon affiliate links below to buy your copy of Lust and Other Drugs. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.
LUST AND OTHER DRUGS: Kindle | Audiobook
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COVER REVEAL: Dead Serious Case #4 Professor Prometheus Plume By Vawn Cassidy (Giveaway)
