Inspired by the pulp fiction novels of the 1940's and 50's, the novellas in this anthology emulate the dark, thrilling, sensational and taboo breaking stories of the post war era and gives them a gay twist.
The Honeytrap
1950’s London. Felix Stone is an openly gay P.I. He is approached by a mysterious woman who pays him to shadow her husband. What at first seems to be a run of the mill adultery case, soon turns out to be much more serious. When the people involved in the case suddenly start dying around him, Felix finds himself embroiled in the world of cold war espionage and his own life is put in danger.
The Deluded
1949. The East End of London is still recovering from the blitz. Fitzgerald O’Sullivan is a young man with romantic notions of living like an impoverished writer. In an attempt to escape his past, he abandons his life of privilege and rents a room in the East End. There he meets Roy Parker, a chirpy Cockney with a working-class charm. Roy asks Fitz to write a story about how he saved the lives of two Jewish ladies during the war. What follows is a far-fetched tale filled with lies and exaggerations. This is is a noir thriller where nothing is what it seems. A dark tale of love, bitterness and vengeance set in the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War
Estranged
1950´s L.A. Sixteen year old Henry Blomqvist is the son of an aspiring actress and stepson of a millionaire businessman. He is an embarrasement to his parents, a useless layabout who is constantly getting arrested for cruising the parks. But his vices pale in comparison with the dark secrets in his parents´ lives. The kidnapping of Henry´s stepfather triggers a series of events which expose the skeletons in his parents´ closets and which finally give Henry the chance to step up to the mark and show what he´s really made of.
This collection of three novellas is brilliant! Do they stack up or as good as the author's DS Billings Victorian Mysteries series? No but they are still incredibly entertaining and deserving of the "noir" in the book title Gay Noir. There isn't really much I feel willing to divulge in the way of plot for any of the trio of mysteries however they all kept me in a desperate page-turning need.
I have to say that I found The Honeytrap to me favorite, followed by Estranged and then The Deluded. Don't get me wrong, just because I placed Deluded last don't think it wasn't good because it was but I will say it took me a few pages to get into the story. Deluded is told with flashbacks which not every author is able to pull off but Olivier Bosman has, it just took a little bit to get into the feel of the story but once I did I was definitely eager to discover the whos, whats, and whys.
As I said above, all three mysteries definitely fit the noir genre which alone makes this an entertaining collection to lose yourself in but there is more to each one that really kept me on the edge of my seat. Most people who think of "noir" picture Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, at least I know I do, but there is so much more to the genre. I can't say I picture any of the characters being Bogey I loved that there was a certain something that made each story's characters their own and not just the typical garden variety cookie cutter detective who blurs the line of right and wrong to get the case solved. Now that's not to say they are squeaky clean and won't cross that line but Olivier Bosman doesn't just follow a noir recipe to tell these stories.
Gay Noir is a win-win from beginning to end that left me wanting more.
RATING:
The Honey Trap
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Six hours had passed since I crept onto the sofa in my office to get some sleep. I’d been awake for five of them. I kept trying to think of the name of the man who was snoring beside me. Was it Jim? Or Jack? Or Jeffrey? Anyway, it started with a J, I knew that much. Where had I got him from? Was it from the Apollonia? Or the Bird Cage? Or had I picked him up off the street?
The lock of the office door turned. It was Joanie. Punctual as ever, come to open up. I should’ve jumped up and rushed towards her. Detained her for a few minutes with stories of my wild, debauched night. Given ‘J’ the chance to get dressed and make himself decent before Joanie came barging in. But I was still groggy from last night and I couldn’t be arsed.
The door to the office swung open and Joanie came marching in. Oblivious to my presence, she walked towards the blinds – in that brisk and efficient manner of hers – and opened them up. A horrible flood of light rushed into the dusty office and finally woke ‘J.’ He popped his sleepy head above the bed sheets and squinted and rubbed his eyes.
“Morning,” I said, addressing both him and Joanie.
They turned to look at me, surprised and confused. I could understand Joanie’s confusion – after all, it’s not every day that a secretary walks into the office and finds her boss naked on the sofa with another man, but what was ‘J’ so confused about?
Joanie put her hands to her mouth and shrieked with embarrassment. ‘J’ pulled the sheet over his head and curled himself into a ball.
“Oh my God, Felix,” Joanie said, shaking her head and frowning. “You might have warned me you had company!”
“I was sleeping,” I lied.
She looked down at ‘J’, who was still cowering under the sheets. “I’m sorry to have alarmed you,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. I’m used to this sort of behaviour from Felix.”
‘J’ finally popped his head above the sheet and looked at her sheepishly. He was blushing.
“What’s your name?” Joanie asked him.
‘J’ was still too shocked to respond. She turned to me for an answer.
I shrugged. “Something with a ‘J’, I think.”
“My name is Michael,” ‘J’ said finally, giving me an indignant look.
Joanie frowned again and shook her head at my callousness. “Hello, Michael. I’m Joanie,” she said to him. “There’s a shower in there.” She pointed towards the bathroom. “You had better get dressed. It’s eight o’clock. We’ll be opening soon. I’ll go outside and make you some coffee.”
‘J’ barely had three sips of his coffee before he rushed out. He couldn’t get away fast enough. Well, who could blame him?
“You really are quite disgraceful,” Joanie said to me after he had left. She was sitting on the edge of my desk, sipping from her coffee cup. “I don’t know why I’m friends with you. That poor chap.”
“You’re friends with me because I’m disgraceful,” I said, taking the sheets and blankets off the sofa and folding them up. My clothes still lay on the floor, and I wore nothing but my boxer shorts. I could tell that Joanie was trying very hard not to look at me as she kept her eyes fixed on her coffee cup.
“Isn’t it time you got your own flat?”
“This is my flat.”
“This is the office, Felix. We’re supposed to work here.” She turned away from me and looked out of the window.
“Work?” I said. “There is no work.” I opened the cupboard and placed the sheets and blankets on the shelf. “Anyway, I can’t afford another flat. I’m four months behind on the mortgage of this one as it is.”
“There’s a woman standing outside,” Joanie said. “Do you think she’s for us?”
I joined her by the window and looked out. An elegant woman stood outside the building, with a calling card in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She kept looking from the card to the door. She seemed nervous.
“Good Lord, do you think she could be a client?” I asked. “We haven’t had one of those in ages.”
There was no need for Joanie to answer, because just at that point the doorbell rang.
“You had better get dressed,” she said. “I’ll go let her in.” She rushed towards the door.
“I suppose you must have heard these kinds of stories a million times before.”
Mrs Celia Skinner spoke with a crisp, cut-glass accent. She was wearing a dark blue cashmere twin set. Her cardigan was left unbuttoned in order to display her pearl necklace, with which she kept fidgeting as she spoke. Her light brown hair was tightly permed, and the little pearls in her ears were just the right size to give her face a little sparkle. Although she wasn’t sparkling now. She kept looking down at the desk, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes.
“It’s about my husband.” She crushed her cigarette out on the ashtray and rummaged in her handbag for another. “He’s having an affair, and I want a divorce. I need you to provide me with proof.” She popped the cigarette in her mouth and lit it.
“Who is your husband?” I asked.
“Mr Raymond Skinner.” She blew a ring of smoke into my face. “He works for the admiralty.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Oh no, there’s nothing impressive about it.” She frowned. “He’s just a lowly civil servant. He’s been in the same post for five years. He’s been passed over for promotion a thousand times. My father warned me about him. I should never have married him.”
“Why do you think your husband is having an affair?”
“What else would he be doing when he doesn’t come home at night?”
“There are numerous things he could be doing.”
“He’s having an affair, Mr Stone. I know he is. He hasn’t touched me in years.”
“Where do you live?”
Mrs Skinner hesitated before answering. “Wimbledon,” she said eventually. “We live in Wimbledon.”
There was something not right about this dame. She acted suitably nervous and uncomfortable while talking to me. And so she should be. After all, the dirty streets of Spitalfields were far removed from the lush green suburbs of Wimbledon. But all the fidgeting with her necklace aside, there was something about her eyes that suggested the opposite of unease. She seemed strangely confident.
“Why did you come to me, Mrs Skinner?”
She looked confused. “What do you mean? You’re a private detective, aren’t you? This is what you do, isn’t it? Chase after cheating husbands and try to catch them at it?”
“But why did you come to me? Where did you get my details from?”
“The telephone directory.”
“I’m not in the telephone directory.”
She frowned again. “Well, what does it matter. I’ll pay whatever you ask. I just want proof so that I can correct the terrible mistake I made in marrying that man six years ago.”
“What I’m trying to get to the bottom of, Mrs Skinner, is why an elegant and well-spoken lady like yourself would travel all the way to Spitalfields to speak to a private detective when there must be dozens of detectives closer to your home. Especially when money appears not to be an issue.”
“You were recommended to me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Recommended? By whom?”
“By my maid, if you must know. She saw the sign outside your building. I came here precisely because it is out of the way. I wouldn’t want to be bumping into a nosy acquaintance prying into my personal life. But what I’d like to know is, will you help me?”
“It’ll cost you two hundred pounds,” I said. That was much more than I’d normally charge, but I wanted to see how she would react.
“Fine.”
“Two hundred and fifty to cover expenses.”
“Fine.”
“Three hundred if I employ any of my associates.”
This time she paused, wondering whether she was being conned. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll pay whatever you ask for, Mr Stone, but only if you provide proof in the form of photographs.”
“In that case, I’ll need another fifty pounds in advance to buy new camera equipment.”
She looked at me sceptically.
“The last one got smashed by an angry husband,” I explained.
“Fine,” she said and opened her handbag. “But the photographs must be clear and irrefutable.” She took a fifty pound note and handed it to me. “You must catch him in the act, if you know what I mean. I don’t want anything that he can explain away.”
“I do know what you mean, Mrs Skinner.” I took the fifty pound note and stuck it in my shirt pocket. “You can trust me. I’ll get you that divorce.”
Born to Dutch parents and raised in Colombia and England, I am a rootless wanderer with itchy feet. I've spent the last few years living and working in The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sudan and Bulgaria, but I have every confidence that I will now finally be able to settle down among the olive groves of Andalucia.
I'm an avid reader and film fan and I have an MA in creative writing for film and television.
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