Tag Archives: crime

Blackmail, My Love

I’ve recently moved to San Francisco and wanted to find out a little more about the city’s history. I don’t do well with textbooks (even sleeping with them under my pillow doesn’t work) so I absorb facts from fiction using some form of osmosis. I’m always on the look out for a piece of fiction that can give me a interesting perspective on the place I’m living in.

blackmail

Blackmail, My Love did just that. It’s a decent LGBT murder mystery but it’s the world-weaving (yes, that’s a thing), which I like. The book is rife with the geographical and historical touchstones that I love. The author does a really good job of bringing the 1950’s LGBT community’s plight alive. SF back then was definitely not liberal and a new law meant (in a round about way) that police raids were stepped up and a lot of the LGBT community were beaten, or in the case of the protagonists brother… disappeared. It really shocked me. I’ve always thought of SF as being a liberal city, it never occurred to me that those rights had to be fought for. I knew it in the back of my head of course but there’s a difference between knowing something and seeing it happen to a character you can identify with.
I googled the author and found an interview where she says that she interviewed a lot of people who lived through those times, so I guess it’s as legit as it can be. I also liked the drawings throughout (not too many, I don’t like picture books) and it turned out that they’re prints that she’s made. That sealed the deal. I’m kind of obsessed with her.

In short. Plot decent. World-weaving (again, real thing) great. Author’s credentials + print skills = legendary. I don’t think I’ll ever see the streets of SF in the same way again.

No Return

15956856I received this book as part of a Goodreads Giveaway at the end of 2012, and I’m glad to say it continues the trend of high quality fares available from this site. Brett Battles ‘No Return’ is an excellent mystery/thriller story which is partly about the navy covering up the death of a US Fighter Pilot but also partly about one man’s return back home for the first time since childhood. At its heart is a strong, surprisingly affecting tale about facing up to the consequences of your actions, something lead character Wes has been hiding from for fifteen years. This is something I’m glad of because the ‘high octane’ blurb on the back didn’t sell itself to me nearly as much as the close-nit tale Brett Battles story deserves.

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