on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4/5
Pages: 288
Started: 27 July 2024
Finished: 29 July 2024
Summary:
Evander Mills is going to spend one last night drinking before he ends his life. Discovered having sex with a man at a gay bar by his police detective co-workers, he knows his life is over; he can't see any reason to keep going. Then he is approached by an elegant older woman with a proposition: play the detective on more time and discover who killed Irene Lamontaine, matriarch of a soap empire--and the elegant woman's wife.
Thoughts:
Whoever described this book as queer Knives Out had it right. This was both a delightful mystery and a multifaceted slice of 1950s queer culture. Although the book did not attempt to hide the way that gay men--and queer people in general--were mistreated in the 50s, nor gloss over the fallibility of queer people in any era, it also presented a hopeful queer haven that was pleasant to read (and to speculate about). The mystery in the book was great, the writing was fun, and the characters were all very three-dimensional. I loved all the 50s and gothic imagery, and the threefold use of the symbol of lavender--the soap, the poisonous bottle that killed Irene, and the color used to symbolize queerness--was also super fun; we love a symbol with multiple uses. This was such a fun mystery; I am definitely going to keep an eye out for the other books in this series.