🌈Happy Pride Month 2020🌈: Top 20 LGBT Mystery Reads Part 1

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Here at Padme's Library I feature all genres but followers have probably noticed that 95% of the posts and 99% of my reviews fall under the LGBT genres, so for this year's Pride Month I am showcasing 20 of my favorite M/M mysteries in no particular order.  Mysteries of all sorts, different eras, different crimes, basically mayhem of all varieties perfectly blended with romance, drama, humor, and heart, creating unforgettable reads.

Those of you who follow my blog have long ago noticed that RJ Scott's Texas, Josh Lanyon's Adrien English, & Mary Calmes' Matter of Time series were the first books I read when I found M/M and have found their way onto multiple favorite & best lists and mysteries are no different.  As I said above my Top 20 LGBT Mystery Reads is in no particular order but as those three have had such an impact on my reading journey it only seemed fitting to be included in Part 1.

One Last Note:
Some of those on my list I have read, reread, & even listened/re-listened so I've included the review posted in my latest read/listen.  Also, those that are read/re-read as a series the latest review may be an overall series review.  I have also tried to include links to previous posts for those that are part of a series.

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Part 2  /  Part 3  /  Part 4  /  Part 5

The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott

Summary:
Texas #1
Riley Hayes, the playboy of the Hayes family, is a young man who seems to have it all: money, a career he loves, and his pick of beautiful women. His father, CEO of HayesOil, passes control of the corporation to his two sons; but a stipulation is attached to Riley's portion. Concerned about Riley's lack of maturity, his father requires that Riley 'marry and stay married for one year to someone he loves'.

Angered by the requirement, Riley seeks a means of bypassing his father's stipulation. Blackmailing Jack Campbell into marrying him "for love" suits Riley's purpose. There is no mention in his father's documents that the marriage had to be with a woman and Jack Campbell is the son of Riley Senior's arch rival. Win win.

Riley marries Jack and abruptly his entire world is turned inside out. Riley hadn't counted on the fact that Jack Campbell, quiet and unassuming rancher, is a force of nature in his own right.

This is a story of murder, deceit, the struggle for power, lust and love, the sprawling life of a rancher and the whirlwind existence of a playboy. But under and through it all, as Riley learns over the months, this is a tale about family and everything that that word means.

Saturday's Series Spotlights: Part 1  /  Part 2  /  Re-Readables 2018

Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon
Summary:
Adrien English #1
One sunny morning Los Angeles bookseller and aspiring mystery author Adrien English opens his front door to murder. His old high school buddy (and employee) has been found stabbed to death in a back alley following a loud and very public argument with Adrien the previous evening.

Naturally the cops want to ask Adrien a few questions; they are none too impressed with his answers, and when a few hours later someone breaks into Adrien's shop and ransacks it, the law is inclined to think Adrien is trying to divert suspicion from himself.

Adrien knows better. Adrien knows he is next on the killer's list.

Saturday Series Spotlight  /  Re-Readable 2018

A Matter of Time Volume 1 by Mary Calmes
Summary:
A Matter of Time #1 & 2
Jory Keyes leads a normal life as an architect's assistant until he is witness to a brutal murder. Though initially saved by police Detective Sam Kage, Jory refuses protective custody—he has a life he loves that he won't give up no matter who is after him. But Jory's life is in real jeopardy, especially after he agrees to testify about what he saw.

While dealing with attempts on his life, well-meaning friends who want to see him happy, an overly protective boss, and a slowly unfolding mystery that is much more sinister than he could ever imagine, the young gay man finds himself getting involved with Sam, the conflicted and closeted detective. And though Jory may survive the danger, he may not survive a broken heart.

Saturday Series Spotlight  /  Re-Readables 2018

Lessons in Power by Charlie Cochrane
Summary:
Cambridge Fellows Mysteries #4
The ghosts of the past will shape your future. Unless you fight them...

Cambridge, 1907: After settling in their new home, Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart are looking forward to nothing more exciting than teaching their students and playing rugby. Their plans change when a friend asks their help to clear an old flame who stands accused of murder.

Doing the right thing means Jonty and Orlando must leave the sheltering walls of St. Bride’s to enter a labyrinth of suspects and suspicions, lies and anguish.

Their investigation raises ghosts from Jonty’s past when the murder victim turns out to be one of the men who sexually abused him at school. The trauma forces Jonty to withdraw behind a wall of painful memories. And Orlando fears he may forever lose the intimacy of his best friend and lover.

When another one of Jonty’s abusers is found dead, police suspicion falls on the Cambridge fellows themselves. Finding this murderer becomes a race to solve the crime…before it destroys Jonty’s fragile state of mind.

Warning: Contains sensual m/m lovemaking and hot men playing rugby.

Saturday's Series Spotlight: Part 1  /  Part 2  /  Part 3  /  Part 4  /  Part 5

Monday's Memorial Moment: Playing a Murderous Tune  /  Following a Poisonous Trail

The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott

Overall Series 5th Re-Read 2019:
As I've said many times before, RJ Scott's Texas series was the first published M/M genre book that I read so they will always hold a place of pride in my heart.  No matter how many times I read or listen to the journey Jack and Riley Campbell-Hayes, their friends and family take I never tire of it.  The characters and the paths they take are so real, so honest, the good and the bad, the heartache and the healing, it never fails to put a smile on face.

As for the audio versions, I can't imagine anyone other than Sean Crisden bringing these stories to life.  Sean's voice make Jack, Riley, and the whole Texas family(which grows with each entry because its not just blood that connects everyone) real.  Honestly I felt as if I looked up I'd see Jack with Solo Cal out in the yard or Riley on the floor with his maps.

If you haven't read/listened to Texas before I highly recommend giving it a go but it is a series needed to be experienced in order.  I warn you though Jack and Riley can be addictive, you'll never want to say goodbye and now thanks to audio you really don't have to😉😉.

Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon
Overall Series 5th Re-Read 2019:
Adrien with an "e", what can I say that I haven't already said?  Nothing really because I absolutely adore Adrien and Jake.  Yes, there are multiple times I want to whack Jake upside the head but he's learning, albeit slowly sometimes but still learning.  There's heartbreak, there's joy, there's murder, and well there's plenty of love(even if it takes Jake a little longer to accept).

All but the final Christmas novella is narrated by Chris Patton and his voice is perfect for these two.  I couldn't imagine listening to anyone else bring life to the pair but then when I listened to So This is Christmas, read by Kale Williams, he too is . . . well for the lack of a better word(and not to sound redundant😉) . . . brilliant.  Obviously there is a difference between the two narrators but since Adrien and Jake are settled, or as settled as they can be considering Adrien's knack for stumbling into mayhem, which changes people and so the difference in narrators kind of reflects that I thought.  So I say spot on to all involved bringing Adrien English and Jake Riordan to life.

Matter of Time by Mary Calmes
Overall Series 5th Re-Read 2019:
Again there's really nothing new I can add that would express how much I love Jory and Sam.  Not everyone likes the kind of alpha male that Sam Kage is and I too don't always appreciate that element but when the dynamic between the two men is so powerful as Sam and Jory then I completely fall in love.  Just because Sam is so alpha don't think Jory is a pushover, oh no he definitely has no problem voicing his opinion either and I think that is what makes them work for me because its an even balance of push and pull from both.

Now as for the audios, there are four different narrators, three for Jory/Sam and one for Duncan/Aaron in Parting Shot.  Some might find that off-putting but I actually found it fitting.  Just why there is different narrators I don't know but as a listener, I found each one did a brilliant job and yes they are noticeably different but they bring the perfect nuances for where the characters are in their journey, we all change as life goes and Paul Morey, Jeff Gelder, and Finn Sterling showcase that wonderfully.  Tristan James brings Duncan and Aaron's story to life that is a perfect fit for the Matter of Time series.

Lessons in Power by Charlie Cochrane
Re-Read Review July 2016:
I didn't think it possible that I could love Jonty & Orlando more but this second time around is amazing!

Original Review Summer 2014:
Another great Jonty and Orlando tale. My heart was breaking for Jonty having to relive the ordeals he suffered in his earlier years. My heart also ached for Orlando having to watch the man he loved relive those horrors and not be able to help other than be there for him. Which of course meant more than Orlando realized it did. This mystery hitting so close to home again brings in Mama and Papa Stewart in loving and interesting ways. Mrs. Stewart may be a woman of her time but she isn't one to be scoffed at either, she's a delight to read. Off to start number five.

RATING:

The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott

Chapter 1
"Sit down, boys," Gerald Hayes said firmly, his back to the Dallas skyline and his arms folded across his chest. They complied with his request since it was more of a command, both sliding into the leather chairs opposite the desk. They wore different expressions, though both were his sons.

Jeff was the mirror of his father, six-five, strong, not averse to getting his own way through means others might consider somewhat underhanded or devious. He'd achieved good things for Hayes Oil, very good things. Under his control, the company had grown in strength due to some well placed deals and some serious, if somewhat questionable, pay-offs to just the right people.

It was how Hayes Oil had gotten where it was today; the second largest oil company in Dallas, billions passing through their coffers on an annual basis, with a staff of over seven hundred in the head office alone. Jeff was a chip off the old block; he knew when to deal, and when to back off, when to buy off. It was a joy for an old man to watch. Jeff was sitting in his chair, his back straight. He was calm, with a virtually inexpressive demeanor, and his eyes were like chips of ice. He was dressed in dark gray Armani, perfectly groomed, his shirt crisp and white, and his tie a deep maroon. His hands were placed on the material of his pants, his nails perfectly manicured. He had an air of expectancy layered about him in palpable waves. Gerald couldn't have been prouder of his eldest son. Jeff was the right choice to form part of the new era of Hayes Oil, his student, and his success.

Riley, his middle child, only an inch shorter than Jeff and nearly as cold, was sitting just as calmly. Nearly. He too was wearing Armani, this time a charcoal black with a black silk shirt and no tie. He exuded the same confidence as his older brother, but with a subtle difference. He was an untamed version of his brother. His middle child had his mother's way about him and eenjoyed the money the Hayes family had, way more than was really necessary. But to give him his due, under his guidance, Research and Development had flourished, and Gerald was as watchful of Riley as he was of his oldest— but for very different reasons.

Riley made decisions driven by his heart, by immeasurable instinct, too many times to make Gerald entirely happy with leaving Hayes Oil under his control for any length of time. Still, Riley deserved a place at Hayes Oil; after all, he supposed, whatever his thoughts, and whatever decisions were made, it was his legacy too.

Riley looked tired today, and Gerald glanced down at the Dallas Morning News on his desk, knowing what was on page seven, the gossip page, knowing what was in evidence before him, and knowing it made his decision easier.

"How is Lisa?" he asked Jeff conversationally, glancing over at the pictures grouped on one side of his desk— his family, Jeff with his arms around his perfect blonde wife, with his two grandchildren posed just so. It filled him with pride to see the Hayes Oil generations all set to carry on the Hayes name. He glanced at photos of his youngest, Eden, and at Riley, both in their photos alone, both for very different reasons.

Sighing, he unfolded his arms, wondering if what he was about to say would change the face of Hayes Oil forever.

* * * * *

Jim Bailey was furious. He could only imagine what Riley was going through at this very minute, and he knew someone had to go and find him before the middle Hayes boy took a gun to his father's head. He had watched as Gerald and the favored son had left. The older man's arm was loose across Jeff's shoulders, their heads close in conversation, and it cut him to the core. It was Jim who had prepared the legal papers, Jim who had argued against the idiocy Hayes Senior was proposing. Someone had to be on Riley's side in this whole freaking mess, even if it meant this was the end of his tenure at Hayes Oil, and he knew where to find Riley. Taking the elevator, he left at the sixty-fifth floor, following the darkening corridor to the map room. It was the one place where Riley could always be found if the stress of his family got too much, sitting cross-legged on the floor poring over his beloved maps. He would spend hours with the geological surveys, the statistical results, his instinct for oil leading R&D to make decisions that had quadrupled Hayes Oil's output over the last two years. It astounded Jim that such a young man, only twenty-seven, had such an instinct. IIt reminded him of the old days, when Gerald and Alan would fly by the seat of their pants to locate new oil reserves based on nothing other than instinct.

Jim hesitated outside the door, steeling himself for what he would find within. Riley was rightly going to be furious with him for withholding the legal changes at Hayes Oil from him. He considered Jim a friend and, as such, probably had the right to expect more. Breathing deeply, he pushed open the door to find the large room echoing and in darkness, the only light from the closing Texas evening and the growing glow of the city outside. It wasn't difficult to locate Riley. Jim could almost touch the anger radiating from the tall man standing at the window silhouetted in the increasing gloom. Jim said nothing, just closing the door behind him and leaning against it. He loosened his tie and focused hard on the dark form. Riley was locked into silent stillness, looking out through the glass.

"Twenty-two percent," Riley finally said, his words clipped and tense. Jim could see himself reflected in that same glass, hesitating, lost, just waiting for the explosion. Jim had known. He had known as soon as the figures hit the desk. For fuck's sake, he was the company's lawyer. He was the one to write up the contracts for handover, the one who'd known the full details for three days longer than Riley.

His anger at what Gerald had forced him to do was manifesting itself as guilt. God knows he had wanted to say something. Every time he looked at the young man who worked so damn hard for this company, he had wanted to tell Riley what Gerald was planning. Never the right moment, never the right reason, and now… now he was paying for the betrayal. "Riley?"

Temper snapped and spat from Riley. "Fucking less than a third, the same as my sister!" He started pacing, gesturing with his hands, frustration in every exaggerated movement. Jim grimaced, because he knew that the percentage Eden got wasn't the point of Riley's temper. Riley was close to his sister, loved her and her shopping ways, and didn't begrudge his Paris Hilton wannabe sibling anything. No, the point was that it hadn't been fair at all. His brother, his acknowledged bastard of a Stepford brother, had just been handed forty-eight percent of Hayes Oil, and effective control of the company.

In a flurry of sudden but controlled movement, Riley spun on his heel, throwing whatever was in his hand across the room, missing Jim by inches. It was a map-reader, fifty thousand dollars of technology smashed into fractured pieces against the glass wall, and then it began. The words that Jim had been expecting.

"He sat there, in his fucking throne room, and he took everything away from me and gave it all to Jeff!" The temper in him was high and rare, and Jim flinched as Riley stalked around the tables that separated them with no direction other than just to walk. "And do you know why?" He stopped, grabbed at the newspapers that were lying in a tangled mess on the final map table by the door, and in one motion, Riley swept everything other than one sheet to the floor. He jabbed at the picture that had been snapped the night before, Riley and Steve at a club, arms around each other, Steve with his usual wide smile, Riley looking somewhat worse for wear from his brush with Jack Daniels and José Cuervo. "This."

It was the usual blurred image from the paparazzi who followed Riley, the playboy prince with a bottomless pit of money, everywhere he went. He shook his head. Now he was really confused and couldn't understand what Riley was getting at. Gerald had explained very clearly that his eldest son was the best for the company, the one switched on to commerce, the one with the business brain. He hadn't listened when Jim had pointed out the amazing upturn in R&D, the increase in oil locations, the way Riley was so committed to Hayes Oil. He had just shaken his head as if he couldn't believe, or didn't want to believe. "The photo?" Jim wasn't stupid; the picture didn't exactly show Riley in his best light. There was the blur of his smile and an unwarranted amount of skin on display as he tumbled half in and half out of the cab, stopping obviously to pose with his best friend.

"He said," Riley paused, a sneer on his face, "that the friendship I have with Steve is unhealthy— unhealthy, shit. He was concerned by Steve's association with Campbell!" The name Campbell came out on a spit and a sneer, the perfect take-off of how Gerald Hayes would have said it, how Jim knew he would have said it. "Oh, and also, because I haven't got myself a brood mare like my oh so fucking perfect brother, then of course I must be confused about my sexuality."

Jim winced, both at the description of Jeff's wife as a brood mare, and at the whole confusion statement. Steve Murray, Riley's best friend since college, was openly bisexual, but Riley, despite having a history of mixing it up with men as well as women, was a lot less defined by a label. He had a different woman every night, younger, older, richer, poorer, it didn't matter, and neither did the boys he did on rarer occasions in the bathrooms of wherever they were. However it panned out, Riley always had tail.

"Said I should look at him and Mom." Again came the sneer, and Jim saw how the temper twisted his normally calm face. "Fuck. Like my mom had the perfect husband in my dad, like Jeff had the perfect fucking marriage with Lisa and her drinking." His voice trailed off, the venom in it spitting and harsh as he dismissed the marriages of his closest family as society based, financially arranged facades.

"Riley," Jim started, thinking maybe a time-out here, some down time, might be good.

"No, Jim. No," Riley interrupted, his hands clenched in fists. "Know what he said?" Riley stopped. Of course Jim knew what Hayes Senior had said. After all, it would have been Jim who had written the damn contract. Riley bowed his head, his face revealing disappointment at his friend's betrayal. Jim prayed that Riley could see that Gerald had forced him into this position. "He said it would be okay if I just got myself married in the next three months—if I found myself some stable brood mare time, and stayed married for a year. Then he would hand over more of Hayes Oil. Not based on the work I do, or the fact that, without me, Hayes Oil would have been landless for the next eighteen months, but based on a marriage. I mean, what the fuck, Jim? This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth."

"I know," Jim said simply, holding his hands up in his defense. "I tried, Riley, I tried to get him to see sense. I'm so sorry." He knew his voice sounded exhausted, sad. All the emotions that were trapped inside at what he'd had to do came swimming to the surface, puncturing the civility he had to show to the world whenever he was at the office. It was almost as if his words pushed through Riley's temper as suddenly and as finally as the thrust of a knife, and Riley visibly deflated in front of him. His head was bowed, his short blond hair disheveled. He looked calmer, but Jim knew this man well; his temper was clearly just below the surface.

"How do I do this, Jim? How do I fucking show the bastard that he can't win, that he can't push me to marry just to get what was rightfully mine anyway?" He looked up at him, the dim light from outside the window casting shadows across high cheekbones and green-hazel eyes. His lower lip was caught in his teeth, and the pain on his face was something Jim had never seen before. "I work fucking hard for this company. What more can I do?"

"So we find someone for you to marry, Riley, some quiet Texan debutante who will agree to a pre-nup, yeah? Someone who ticks the boxes, and then after this prescribed year is up, you can quietly divorce."

Jim could see that Riley wanted to say he couldn't do that, wanted to say that no woman in her right mind would agree to this, but they both knew it would be easy to find a bride. Both knew that the chance of marrying Riley Hayes was going to bring everyone out of the woodwork, fairly begging for the chance.

"I can't do that," Riley said simply. "I won't give Dad the satisfaction of winning like this."

Jim sighed. "So you let him win by not doing it, then. For him it's a win-win situation. Let's face it, you either let him win by doing something, or you let him win by doing nothing. Either way, Riley, you're fucked."

Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon
Cops before breakfast. Before coffee even. As if Mondays weren't bad enough.

I stumbled downstairs, unlocked the glass front doors, shoved back the ornate security gate, and let them in: two plainclothes detectives.

They identified themselves with a show of badges. Detective Chan was older, a little paunchy, a little rumpled, smelling of Old Spice and cigarettes as he brushed by me. The other one, Detective Riordan, was big and blonde, with a neo-Nazi haircut and tawny eyes. Actually I had no idea what color his eyes were, but they were intent and unblinking, as though waiting for a sign of activity from the mouse hole.

“I'm afraid we have some bad news for you, Mr. English,” Detective Chan said, as I started down the aisle of books towards my office.

I kept walking, as though I could walk away from whatever they were about to tell me.

“...Concerning an employee of yours. A Mr. Robert Hersey.”

I slowed down, stopped there in front of the Gothic section. A dozen damsels in distress (and flimsy negligees) caught my eyes. I turned to face the cops. They wore what I would describe as 'official' expressions.

“What about Robert?” There was a cold sinking in my gut. I wished I'd stopped for shoes. Barefoot and unshaven, I felt unbraced for bad news. Of course it was bad news. Anything to do with Robert was bound to be bad news.

“He's dead.” That was the big one, Riordan. He Man.

“Dead,” I repeated.

Silence.

“You don't seem surprised.”

“Of course I'm surprised.” I was, wasn't I? I felt kind of numb. “What happened? How did he die?”

They continued to eye me in that assessing way.

“He was murdered,” Detective Chan said.

My heart accelerated, then began to slug against my ribs. I felt the familiar weakness wash through me. My hands felt too heavy for my arms.

“I need to sit down,” I said.

I turned and headed back towards my office, reaching out to keep myself from careening into the crowded shelves. Behind me came the measured tread of their feet, just audible over the singing in my ears.

I pushed open my office door, sat down heavily at the desk and opened a drawer, groping inside. The phone on my desk began to ring, jangling loudly in the paperback silence. I ignored it, found my pills, managed to get the top off and palmed two. Washed them down with a swallow of whatever was in the can sitting there from yesterday. Tab. Warm Tab. It had a bracing effect.

“Sorry,” I told LA's finest. “Go ahead.”

Chan glanced at Riordan.

The phone, which had stopped ringing, started up again. “Aren't you going to answer that?” Riordan inquired after the fourth ring.

I shook my head. “How did---? Do you know who--?”

The phone stopped ringing. The silence was even more jarring.

“Hersey was found stabbed to death last night in the alley behind his apartment,” Chan answered.

Riordan said, without missing a beat, “What can you tell us about Hersey? How well did you know him? How long had he worked for you?”

“I've known Robert since high school. He's worked for me for about a year.”

“Any problems there? What kind of an employee was Hersey?”

I blinked up at Chan. “He was okay,” I said, at last focusing on their questions.

“What kind of friend was he?” Riordan asked.

“Sorry?”

“Were you sleeping with him?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

“Were you lovers?” Chan asked, glancing at Riordan.

“No.”

“But you are homosexual?” That was Riordan, straight as a stick figure, summing me up with those cool eyes, and finding me lacking in all the right stuff.

“I'm gay. What of it?”

“And Hersey was homosexual?”

“And two plus two equals a murder charge?” The pills kicking in, I felt stronger. Strong enough to get angry. “We were friends, that's all. I don't know who Robert was sleeping with. He slept with a lot of people.”

I didn't quite mean it that way, I thought as Chan made a note. Or did I? I still couldn't take it in. Robert murdered? Beaten up, yes. Arrested, sure. Maybe even dead in a car crash--or by some autoerotic misadventure. But murdered? It seemed so unreal. So...Film At Eleven.

I kept wanting to ask if they were sure? Probably everyone they interviewed asked the same question.

I must have been staring fixedly into space because Riordan asked abruptly, “Are you all right, Mr. English? Are you ill?”

“I'm all right.”

“Could you give us the names of Hersey's-- uh--men friends?” Chan asked. The too polite 'men friends' put my teeth on edge.

“No. Robert and I didn't socialize much.”

Riordan's ears pricked up. “I thought you were friends?”

“We were. But--”

They waited. Chan glanced at Riordan. Though Chan was older I had the impression that Riordan was the main man. The one to watch out for.

I said cautiously, “We were friends, but Robert worked for me. Sometimes that put a strain on our relationship.”

“Meaning?”

“Just that we worked together all day; we wanted to see different people at night.”

“Uh huh. When was the last time you saw Mr. Hersey?”

“We had dinner--” I paused as Chan seemed about to point out that I had just said Robert and I didn't socialize. I finished lamely, “And then Robert left to meet a friend.”

“What friend?”

“He didn't say.”

Riordan looked skeptical. “When was this?”

“When was what?”

Patiently, long-suffering professional to civilian, he re-phrased, “When and where did you have dinner?”

“The Blue Parrot on Santa Monica Blvd. It was about six.

“And when did you leave?”

“Robert left about seven. I stayed and had a drink at the bar.”

“You have no idea who he left to meet? A first name? A nick name?”

“No.”

“Do you know if he was going home first or if they were meeting somewhere?”

“I don't know.” I frowned. “They were meeting somewhere, I think. Robert looked at his watch and said he was late; it would take him ten minutes. If he had been heading back home it would have taken him half an hour.”

Chan jotted all this down in a little notebook.

“Anything else you can tell us, Mr. English? Did Mr. Hersey ever indicate he was afraid of anyone?”

“No. Of course not.” I thought this over. “What makes you think he wasn't mugged?”

“Fourteen stab wounds to his upper body and face.”

I could feel the blood drain out of my face again.

“Those kind of wounds generally indicate prior acquaintance,” Riordan drawled.

I don't remember exactly all they asked, after that. Irrelevant details, I felt at the time: Did I live alone? Where had I gone to school? How long had I owned the shop? What did I do with my spare time?

They verified the spelling of my name. “Adrien, with an 'e',” I told Chan. He almost, but not quite, smirked.

They thanked me for my cooperation, told me they would be in touch.

Before he left my office, Riordan picked up the empty can on my desk. “Tab. I didn't know they still made that.”

He crushed it in one big fist and tossed it in the trash basket.

* * * * *

The phone started ringing before I could relock the front door. For a moment I thought it was Robert calling in sick again.

“Adrien, mon cher,” fluted the high, clear voice of Claude La Pierra. Claude owns Café Noir on Hillhurst Ave. He's big and black and beautiful. I've known him about three years. I'm convinced he's a Southland native, but he affects a kind of gender-confused French like a Left Bank expatriate with severe memory loss. “I just heard. It's too ghastly. I still can't believe it. Tell me I'm dreaming.”

“The police just left.”

“The police? Mon Dieu! What did they say? Do they know who did it?”

“I don't think so.”

“What did they tell you? What did you tell them? Did you tell them about me?”

“No, of course not.”

A noisy sigh of relief down the phone line. “Certainement pas! What is there to tell? But what about you? Are you all right?”

“I don't know. I haven't had time to think.”

“You must be in shock. Come by for lunch.”

“I can't, Claude.” The thought of food made me want to vomit. “I--there's no one to cover.”

“Don't be so bourgeois. You have to eat, Adrien. Close the shop for an hour. Close it for the day!”

“I'll think about it,” I promised vaguely.

No sooner had I hung up on Claude than the phone rang again. I ignored it, padding upstairs to shower.

But once upstairs I sank down on the couch, head in my hands. Outside the kitchen window I could hear a dove cooing, the soft sound distinct over the mid-morning rush of downtown traffic.

Rob dead. It seemed both unbelievable and inevitable. A dozen images flashed through my brain in some macabre mental slide show: Robert at sixteen, in his West Valley Academy tennis whites. Robert and I, drunk and fumbling, in the Ambassador Hotel the night of the Senior Prom. Robert on his wedding day. Robert last night, his face unfamiliar and distorted by anger.

No chance now to ever make it up. No chance to say good-bye. I wiped my eyes on my shirt sleeve, listened to the muffled ring of the phone downstairs. I told myself to get up and get dressed. Told myself I had a business to run. I continued to sit there, my mind racing ahead, looking for trouble. I could see it everywhere, looming up, pointing me out of the lineup. Maybe that sounds selfish, but half a lifetime of getting myself out of shit Robert landed me in had made me wary.

For seven years I had lived above the shop in “Old” Pasadena. Cloak and Dagger Books. New, used and vintage mysteries, with the largest selection of gay and gothic whodunits in Los Angeles. We held a workshop for mystery writers on Tuesday night. My partners in crime had finally convinced me to put out a monthly newsletter. And I had just sold my own first novel, Murder Will Out, about a gay Shakespearean actor who tries to solve a murder during a production of Macbeth.

Business was good. Life was good. But especially business was good. So good that I could barely keep up with it, let alone work on my next book. That's when Robert had turned up in my life again.

His marriage to Tara, his (official) high school sweetheart, was over. Getting out of the marriage had cost what Rob laughingly called a 'queen's ransom.' After six years and two-point-five children he was back from the Heartland of America, hard up and hard on. At the time it seemed like serendipity.

On automatic pilot I rose from the sofa, went into the bathroom to finish my shower and shave, which had been interrupted by the heavy hand of the law on my door buzzer at 8:05 a.m.

In the steamy surface of the mirror I grimaced at my reflection, hearing again that condescending, 'But you are a homosexual?' As in, 'But you are a lower life form?' So what had Detective Riordan seen? What was the first clue? Blue eyes, longish dark hair, a pale bony face. What was it in my Anglo-Norman ancestry that screamed 'faggot?'

Maybe he had a gaydar anti-cloaking device. Maybe there really was a straight guy checklist. Like those “How to Recognize a Homosexual” articles circa the Swinging Sixties. Way back when I had one stuck to the fridge door with my favorite 'give-aways' highlighted:

Delicate physique (or overly muscular)

Striking unusual poses

Gushy, flowery conversation, i.e., “wild,” “mad,” etc.

Insane jealousy

What's funny about that? Mel, my former partner, had asked irritably, ripping the list down one day.

Hey, isn't that on the list? 'Queer sense of humor?' Mel, do you think I'm homosexual?

So what led Detective Riordan to (in a manner of speaking) finger me?

Still on automatic pilot I got in the shower, soaped up, rinsed off, toweled down. It took me another numb fifteen minutes to find something to wear. Finally I gave up and I dressed in jeans and a white shirt. One thing that will never give me away is any sign of above average fashion sense.

I went back downstairs. Reluctantly.

The phone had apparently never stopped ringing. I answered it. It was a reporter: Bruce Green from Boytimes. I declined an interview and hung up. I plugged in the coffee machine, unlocked the front doors again, and phoned a temp agency.

A Matter of Time Volume 1 by Mary Calmes
After careful thought and consideration I have come to the conclusion that things happen to me for two reasons. First, I have a terrible habit of tuning out in the middle of a conversation. I’ll hear the beginning, start thinking about what I’m going to do later, and then come back in time to hear the end. This gets particularly dicey when I’m getting directions, because you never want to ask someone to repeat something they have already gone over in specific detail. This is why I often end up in some spooky neighborhoods after dark. I’m winging it. Second, I am not the most discriminating person on the planet. So when a friend of mine asks me to do them a favor, I’ll usually just do it without asking a lot of questions. Not that I would be listening to the whole explanation anyway, since like I said, I’m probably the poster child for ADHD, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, unless you’re my boss or a really hot guy.

The night my friend Anna called me, sobbing on the other end of the phone, I immediately went into nurture mode and walked out of the club, so I could hear her better. There is no way to hear anything over trance music, so I had her wait to spill her guts. I was happily surprised to hear that she was finally leaving her husband. She had stayed with me or her sister many times, after he’d hit her for the millionth time. It’s hard to watch your friends come to class wearing oversized sunglasses, and makeup that’s so thick it could have been applied with a putty knife. Everyone knew her husband beat her, I just never knew how bad or constant it was. I lost track of her after graduation, when she moved to the suburbs, but when she called I was right back there, instantly in that place where I was ready to help any way I could. I told her that of course, I would do whatever she needed.

In all the movies on the Lifetime channel, which I watched the last time I was home sick—hung over and hurling—the wife always has to go back to get her kid’s stuffed animal from the house of horrors she lives in. But before she can put the pedal to the metal and point the late-model station wagon with the faux-wood paneling into the sunset, she has to return for Boo-Boo Bunny or Mr. Snuggles, or a teddy bear that has been loved so hard and long it now resembles an iguana. Anna didn’t have any kids, but what she did have was her beagle, George. She couldn’t go back, but neither could she leave without her partner in crime. They had apparently executed all manner of petty crimes and misdemeanors against her husband over the years. From peeing in shoes—George’s part—to hiding miscellaneous items—Anna’s part—they had made Brian Minor’s daily existence annoying, in exchange for the abuse he had handed out with fist and word. It had given her some degree of satisfaction knowing that, one day, vengeance would be hers. She knew she’d been a coward to not just leave, but she suspected her husband was far more sinister then he let on. So Anna was finally ready to call it a day with Brian but he would have suspected something, and probably killed her, if she’d tried to take her dog. She needed me to get her puppy to make a clean break of it. Because I wanted her out of there so badly, and because I would have gone back for my own dog were he still alive, there was no way to say no.

After leaving my friends dancing at a club on Halsted, I took a cab and headed out to the suburbs. I tried never to leave the city and had only been outside of downtown Chicago on two previous occasions. On the way over there I tried to remember where in the house she had told me the dog was, but since I hadn’t heard that part it was useless to try and dredge the information from my brain. I figured when I got to the house, which I had only been to once, it wouldn’t be hard to find a beagle.

The problem turned out to be finding the house itself. I forgot the address and I didn’t want to call Anna back and look like I hadn’t been listening. Even though I hadn’t. And by then enough time had gone by that if I had called her she would have wondered why I just didn’t call her earlier, so… the cabbie and I took the tour of La Grange until I remembered the street in an energy-drink-fuelled vision after I made him stop at a gas station. It had only taken two hours to get to her huge three-story apparition. I asked the driver to wait for me and he said he’d rather drink Clorox. I understood. I can be exhausting at times. I watched him drive away before I headed toward the house.

The front door swung open when I went to ring the doorbell. I called for Brian and got no response. When I called for George, I heard muffled barking from a room to the left. It was the study, and as soon as I walked in I realized the noise was coming from behind the curtain. When I checked, there was another door behind it. If you weren’t looking for it you would have never seen it, but there was no missing the high-pitched puppy whining. When I opened the door, George was all over me, whimpering, dancing, his whole little body moving with his wagging tail, trying like mad to claw through my jeans. I bent to pet him, and when I did, without meaning to, without even thinking about it, I stepped into the office. The door was open but behind the curtain, so even though I had never intended to hide, I ended up doing just that. It was only for a second and I was ready to step back out when I heard the crash. George yelped and retreated behind my leg. I peeked around the drape and saw a man lying on top of the remains of the heavy glass coffee table that I had walked by seconds earlier. He was covered in blood and mumbling softly.

There are those moments that seem like a strobe light is going off in your head. You see pieces of things but not the whole picture. I saw the shattered glass, the burnished black leather shoes of the guys standing on the royal blue Persian rug; I saw the polished marble floors and Brian holding a gun on the guy. It doesn’t sound like it does in the movies. When a gun goes off, there’s no boom, it’s more of a firecracker pop. I saw the guy jerk, heard him scream out “no,” and watched Brian unload the gun. It was fast, like a jump cut in a movie, and it was over. All the guys took a turn spitting on him, and it was at that moment that two things happened simultaneously. First, my phone rang, which does “Karma Chameleon,” and second, George bolted through the drape. I lunged for him and caught his collar but not in time to stop my forward momentum. It was like being on stage. I came out from behind the curtain. Like ta-dah!

My eyes swept the room; I saw every face before I settled on the one I knew the best, the guy holding the empty gun.

“Jory!” Brian roared, and because I have no fight reflex whatsoever, I went immediately to flight. I yanked on George’s collar and whipped him back into the other room. As I dived after him I heard the shots and Brian screaming my name. He’d never been all that crazy about me but we were definitely in another place by that moment.

I got my legs under me and ran. I yelled for George and he was running along beside me as fast as his little legs would carry him. I saw a guy in front of me but instead of slowing down I sped up. When he pulled his gun, I dropped to my knees and slid halfway across the polished wooden floor. It would have been very cool if I weren’t running for my life at the time. He fell on top of me, but I got untangled and ran for the front door. When I threw it open, I was faced with Darth Vader.

“Get down,” he ordered me, and what sounded like a baseball hit him in the chest.

I dove for the ground and he stepped on me and then somebody else kicked me and then my arm got yanked so hard I thought my shoulder was dislocated. Outside, someone dragged me to my feet before pulling me into the street where like a hundred police cars were, lights flashing everywhere. It was cold and I registered that before anything else. There were more shots and I got shoved back down to my knees on the ground. I lost my balance because I got bumped and pushed and then somebody covered me in a jacket that weighed like a thousand pounds. I fell back and George was on me, licking my face as I tried to breathe. I was winded and when I finally grabbed the dog and hugged him so he’d stop I realized four men were standing over me. Not one looked pleased. One guy in particular looked like he wanted to strangle me right there in the middle of the street.

“Two years of undercover work blown in seconds,” he told me icily.

What to say? “Sorry?”

“Who the fuck are you?” he snarled at me. The scowl looked permanent.

I coughed twice. My ribs hurt. “Jory Keyes.”

“What are you doing here, man?” one of the others snapped at me.

I tried to take in some air. “I came to get the dog,” I told them, which was really all the explanation I had. It had seemed like such a nothing task at the time.

“The dog?”

Their expressions were priceless and even lying there on the pavement I had to smile.

If I didn’t watch so much TV, real life wouldn’t be so disappointing. As it was, I was expecting the interrogation room from Law & Order and the reality was nothing like that. It wasn’t dark, it was really bright, and the metal table was bolted to the floor. The chairs were cold and metal without any padding, and just basically had no atmosphere or character to speak of. It was just plain anticlimactic and so I was bored. I had an ice pack on the back of my head, a Sprite for my stomach, which had gotten queasy when my adrenaline ran out, and a pen and paper so I could write down everything I remembered. I had recounted what I’d seen to a lot of different people ten different ways. When Anna had come to get George, they wouldn’t let me see her. She was being taken somewhere safe right that second. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t want her to get hurt either. My head was down on my folded arms when the door opened. So many people had been in and out that I didn’t even look up.

“Mr. Keyes."

I rolled my head sideways and realized that Detective Sam Kage was back. He was, I’d decided, the one that hated me the most. I had screwed up his undercover investigation with my need to be rescued. He and his fellow vice detectives had to break cover, turn their guns on Brian Minor, and save me. The only luck they had all night was that Brian had actually killed a man in cold blood and they had an eyewitness to that… me. He was going to jail for a long time. It was just as good, they said, as racketeering, bribery, blackmail, and extortion. First-degree murder had its own time frame that worked for them.

“Sit up and look at me.”

I lifted my head off my arm and leaned back in my chair, staring at him. He had changed out of his Kevlar body armor and was now in a shirt and tie. He was trying to pull off mild-mannered police detective but I wasn’t buying it. I’d seen the beast inside of him already. The others, his tall but balding captain, his dark sort of eastern-European-looking partner and the two others, who looked like poster boys for the Marine Corps, all of them were nicer than Detective Kage. I wanted anyone else but him in the room with me.

“Mr. Keyes, you—”

“What kind of gun is that?” I asked, pointing to his holster.

“What?”

“What kind of gun?”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I was just wondering.”

“It’s a Glock 22.”

“Okay,” I yawned, letting out a deep sigh. That exchange had maybe killed a second and a half. What was next on the agenda?

“Tell me about yourself, Mr. Keyes.”

I looked back at him. “Whaddya wanna know?”

“Where are you from?”

“Kentucky,” I said flatly because I usually said LA or Miami just to make it sound more glamorous, but I figured he was looking for the truth, being a police officer and all.

“How long have you been in Chicago?”

“I moved here when I was seventeen.”

“You run away from home?”

“Nope. I graduated from high school when I was seventeen. See my birthday’s in January so I started school at four instead of—”

“Can we move on?”

Rude much?

“Well?”

“Rude much?” I said out loud instead of just thinking it in my head.

“Sorry, go on.”

“Never mind,” I snapped at him. I hated getting caught rambling on to people that didn’t give a crap. It was mortifying.

“Just talk already, sorry for interrupting.”

He wasn’t sorry, but I figured if I were waiting for actual sincerity I’d be sitting there a long time. I was better off just letting it go. What did it matter to me if he cared or didn’t? “Okay, so I got here and got a job and I’ve been here ever since.”

“Uh-huh. So what, your family’s still there in Kentucky?”

“No,” I breathed out. “There was only my grandmother and she died when I was ten.”

“Where are your folks?”

“I have no idea.”

“You have no idea where your father is.”

He said it like he didn’t believe it. “No. I don’t even know who he is. It doesn’t even say on my birth certificate, and my mother left when I was like three months old or something. Her name was… is Mandy, but that’s all I can tell you. She never came back so I’ve never met her.”

“I see. So you were raised by your grandmother, and when she died, what?”

“I went into foster care.”

He looked straight at me. “Any horror stories?”

“No, I was lucky. I lived in a group home from the time I was ten to the time when I graduated from high school.”

“You close to any of those people?”

“No. Why?”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. You’re acting like I have a character deficit or something.”

“Was I?”

“It was implied,” I assured him.

He grunted.

“It was a group home, Detective. It wasn’t the whole mother/father deal. It was like a dorm. I wasn’t close to anyone. They could have cared less if I was there or not.”

“Did that bother you?”

“I don’t need some bullshit psych eval here, all right? It was what it was, it doesn’t matter.”

He nodded. “So you graduated and what?”

“I bought a bus ticket from Lexington, Kentucky to Chicago, Illinois.”

“And so you got here and then what happened?

“Why is this important?”

“I just need some background, Mr. Keyes, if you don’t mind.”

Did I mind? “Okay, so I got here and got the job I have now. I worked all through college and when I was done I decided to stay instead of doing something else.”

“And where do you work?”

“I work at Harcourt, Brown, and Cogan,” I said proudly.

“By your tone I’m assuming I’m supposed to know what that is.”

I felt my brows draw together.

“What’s with the look?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No I’m not kidding.”

“You’re serious?”

“I said I was.”

“Huh.”

“What is whatever you said?”

“Harcourt, Brown, and Cogan… it’s one of the premier architectural firms in the city.”

“Uh-huh.”

“My boss, Dane Harcourt, he’s the main architect. Miles Brown does interior design and Sherman Cogan is the landscape architect.”

“What does main architect mean?”

“He designs houses.”

He stared at me a long minute. “Does he?”

“Yes. He’s very famous.”

“If he’s so famous why haven’t I ever heard of him?”

I scoffed at him. “I bet the people you haven’t heard of could fill a book, Detective.”

“You’re a punk, you know that?”

I smiled at him. “Particularly nice comeback, Detective.”

“So that’s it, no family, just you?”

“Just me.”

“This’ll be easy then.”

“What will?”

“Making you disappear.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Protective custody, witness protection… are you starting to get it?”

I shook my head. “Just tell me when I can go home.”

His eyes narrowed more than they already were. “Are you stupid?”

I just waited, staring at him.

“Mr. Keyes, you are never going home again. You are going into the witness protection program. Federal marshals will be here in the morning to transport you to—”

“Yeah, right,” I got up. I was tired of being treated like I did something wrong. “I’m going now. I’m beat and I gotta go to work in the morning.”

“Mr. Keyes, people want to kill you. Do you understand that? Brian Minor is very well connected and—”

“I gotta go,” I said as I got up and headed for the door.

“Mr. Keyes, you are going into protective custody.”

“Uh-huh,” I scoffed at him, stopping at the door only as long as it took to open it and go through. At the end of the hall, Brian was being walked to wherever he was being taken by two uniformed police officers.

“Jory!” he yelled at me. “You’re a dead man! Do you understand me? Dead!”

I smirked at him and flipped him off. He yanked free and came charging down the hall toward me. I had no idea what he thought he was going to do to me, handcuffed like he was, but he came anyway. He’d always been so big and brutish, one of those bull in a china shop kind of guys. A lot of big men were still fluid when they moved, like their size was perfect for them, but Brian had always seemed unaware of how strong he was or the confines of his own shoulders and legs. Plodding like an animal was what had forever come to mind. So when he got to me I ducked and crouched and swept my leg underneath him. He went down with a hard face-plant into the tile floor at my feet. I stood there a second and then very theatrically stepped over him.

“You sonofabitch!” he shrieked at me.

“Shut the hell up,” I said irritably.

“Jory!” he screamed at me as I jumped over his thrashing legs before he was buried under five policemen. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you… you fuckin’ faggot! You hear me! Jory! You goddamn cocksucker!”

“Oh, go to hell, Brian,” I groaned, turning to walk away from him. “And that whole faggot crap is so old. Who even uses that word anymore?”

“Jory!” he screamed after me.

“People with pickup trucks and gun racks, that’s who,” I chuckled, my own laughter sounding a little unhinged. I was ready to pass out.

“Jory!” His voice had lost some of its power but he was still shrieking.

I headed toward the stairs.

“Mr. Keyes!”

I pivoted around and Detective Kage was there with his nice captain that I’d met earlier and another of the square-cut jaw/square-cut hair guys who had been on the street with him. He did the two-fingered poke into my collarbone like he was trying to drill through my skin.

“Where the hell do you think—”

“Sam,” the captain cautioned him, putting up his hand. “Let’s not—”

“He’s an idiot,” he gestured at me, “and he’ll be dead this time tomorrow.”

“And who would do that? Brian?” I smirked at him. “Gimme a break.”

He gestured at me again but said nothing.

“Mr. Keyes,” the other detective began, his voice gentle, soothing. “Even though you think of Mr. Minor as simply the sonofabitch husband of one of your girlfriends, you must believe us when we tell you the man is not that benign. He’s a drug dealer, a murderer, and someone you don’t want to cross. There are a lot of people that don’t want him in the position of choosing between jail time or talking about them. You alone have the power to put him behind bars. Without you, he walks. Do you understand that?”

“I get it,” I told him. “I do. I will testify. I will do whatever you need so he never sees Anna again as long as he lives. I promise, but seriously—I have a life. I mean, I get from being here for the last five hours that you guys don’t think being someone’s assistant is important. But I promise you that, to my boss, I actually matter. I’ve got so much shit to do, you have no idea.” I let out a quick breath, finally shaking my head. “Call me and tell me what day I need to appear in court.” I said, heading down the stairs to the exit.

“Mr. Keyes.”

I sighed and turned around, looking up at the captain.

“They’ll come after people you love.”

I shrugged. “Good luck finding any.” I said, before I turned back away from him.

Outside the air was cold. I had forgotten I was still in my dancing clothes, which consisted that night of a black spandex T-shirt, tight, brown, distressed boot-cut jeans and motorcycle boots. So because it was November, I was freezing. It smelled like it was going to rain and the breeze was icy. My teeth started to chatter as I looked for a cab.

A car slowed down beside me and I heard the sound of the automatic window going down. When I turned, a guy was smiling at me from the driver’s side.

I waited for the come-on line.

“Hey, man, you need a lift?”

The whole ick factor of some middle-aged man in a van trying to pick me up in the same ride that he took his kids to school in made my skin crawl.

“I’m talking to you, pretty boy.”

“No thanks,” I said quickly, hoping he’d just drive away. “I don’t need a ride.”

“C’mon,” he persisted, “how much?”

“I’m not hustling, man, I’m just walkin’,” I said, moving faster.

“Sure you are,” he leered at me. “Get in.”

And I thought, it’s the club clothes outside of the club, downtown, walking the streets alone at two in the morning. I couldn’t fault his logic. I had rent boy written all over me. “I.…”

The horn scared us both. I jumped, and the guy was so startled that he gunned the motor and drove away. It would have been funny if my heart weren’t pounding so hard. I shivered in spite of myself and looked up when someone shouted my name.

I saw the enormous SUV then, named after something nautical, black and shiny, and through the lowered window was Detective Kage. He was motioning me over. I shoved my hands down in my pockets as I walked over to see what he wanted.

“Get in,” he snapped at me as soon as I peered in the window.

“I—”

“Mr. Keyes,” he said sharply, and the exasperation was not lost on me. “You’re this close to being put in the vehicle whether you like it or not.”

The way he said the word vehicle, so clinical, so like the cop that he was. Step away from the vehicle, put your hands on top of the vehicle, get in the vehicle.… it was funny. “Oh yeah?” I baited him because I figured I could move before he got a hold of me. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” he warned me, his gaze level and dark. “I think so.”

And it wasn’t so much the ominous tone or the way he was looking at me as the muscle that flexed in his jaw. I realized I was closer to jeopardy than I realized. He was bigger than me, so the chances that he could hurt me were pretty good.

I opened the door and climbed up into the seat, swinging the heavy door shut hard.

He grunted at me. “Put on your goddamn seat belt.”

“Do you know where I live?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he almost growled. He had one of those voices that was low and husky, the kind that under other circumstances I would have found sexy as hell.

“I don’t live in the city.” I wanted to make sure he knew where he was going. “I live just on the other side of Austin Avenue in Oak Park.”

He didn’t respond so I gave up. There was some cowboy crap playing on the radio but it was low so I didn’t complain.

“Did you hear me?” I asked him, checking.

“I know where you live,” he said fast, clearly exasperated. “It was one of the many questions you answered for me, as you may recall.”

I rolled my eyes as my phone rang. “Hello?” I answered.

“Where the hell did you go?” Taylor Grant asked me irritably.

“To get a friend out of a jam,” I smiled, slouching down in the seat.

“Were you gonna come back or call?”

I chuckled. “I thought that wasn’t our deal. Either one of us could split at any time. It’s your rule,” I reminded him cheerfully.

Long silence.

“Right?”

“Yeah, right,” he said, the annoyance clear in his voice. “So where are you?”

“On my way home.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Tell me where that is.”

“Nah. I’ll call you,” I told him.

“Jory,” he said softly. “Please lemme see—”

“Later,” I yawned and hung up. I wasn’t in the mood for company. I just wanted to go home, shower off the night, and pass out in my bed.

“Friend of yours?”

“Not really,” I told him, “just a guy.”

“You got a lot of guys?”

I turned slowly to look at him.

“What?” he asked gruffly.

“What kind of question is that?”

“Fair, I would say.”

I went back to staring out the window.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.” I clipped my answer, trying not to snap.

“Twenty-two,” he repeated.

“Yeah.”

“How can you afford to live alone?”

It was a weird question. “I told you already, I have a good job.”

“And what else?”

I turned again to look at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know.”

“I don’t think I do, Detective. You need to spell it out for me.”

“Fine. Does some guy help you out with your rent in exchange for fucking you?”

That was definitely clear. “No,” I barely got out through my clenched jaw.

“No?”

“How do you know I’m even gay, Detective?”

He glanced at me, scoffing. “Dressed like that?”

“You know what, just lemme out.”

“Knock it off. Don’t be so dramatic.” He was annoyed and his voice was dripping with it. “All you guys are so goddamn dramatic.”

All you guys? “You mean gay guys?”

“Just drop it, all right? I’m tired and I don’t feel like getting into a pissing contest with you. I’m driving you ’cause if I don’t, you’re gonna freeze to death. You don’t even have a jacket.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Just sit there and shut up.”

And I granted his request and didn’t say another word to him for the rest of the ride. When he dumped me in front of the old Victorian house that had been converted into four apartments, I got out. I slammed the door and ran across the lawn without a backward glance. I didn’t check to see if he waited.

When I got inside I immediately fell down on my bed, fully clothed, with my shoes still on. I was exhausted. Having people shooting at you as you ran for your life was really very draining.

Lessons in Power by Charlie Cochrane

 Cambridge, February 1907 

“I’ve been reading a book.”

“I remember you saying that once before. We were both stark naked in front of a fire just like this one and by rights should have been making a first consummation of our passion.”

Orlando Coppersmith swatted at his friend’s head with the first thing that came to hand, which luckily for Jonty Stewart wasn’t one of the fire dogs but a bread roll. “It’s a constant amazement to me that you’ve ever shut up long enough for a consummation to take place. Blether, blether, if they made it an Olympic event you’d be so certain to be champion that no one else would turn up to oppose you.”

“And the point of this conversation was?” Jonty flicked some toast crumbs from his cuff.

“This book concerned the meaning of names and it struck me how apt yours was. Well, it struck me at the time—after the latest bit of tomfoolery I’m not so sure.” Orlando, once a potential Olympic frowning champion, smiled happily.

“Handsome, lovely, is that what it means? Statuesque? Desirable?” Jonty chirped away like a little bird, full of the joys of a day which suggested that spring might be just around the corner, if the light filtering into the dining room was any indication.

Orlando grabbed his friend’s hands. “Stop it. I’m in deadly earnest. It means ‘God has given’. Now if that’s not an apt description of you for me then I’ve no idea what is.”

Jonty had the grace to blush. “You’ll have to tell Mama. She alleges the choice of Jonathan was all Papa’s. She wanted to call me James.”

“I think I’ll start calling you Godgiven or some such thing when you’re at your most annoying. It might get you to calm down.” Orlando buttered his toast with great energy, as if it were his friend’s bottom that was getting a whack.

Jonty poked out his tongue, although his lover couldn’t be sure whether he was thinking or being insulting. “And what does Orlando mean? Irritating? Insatiable?”

“It’s from Roland.”

“Well, I’m none the wiser with that.”

“Neither was the book, to tell the truth, although it’s supposed to be something to do with a famous land. I suspect it means ‘he who gains fame throughout the country’.”

Jonty turned up his nose. “More likely ‘he who spends hours in the bathroom’. Luckily we have two in this place or I’d never be ready in the morning.”

In fact there were three bathrooms in their house, but the one in the self-contained annexe—which itself contained Mrs. Ward, their housekeeper—never got taken into the reckoning as they never got to go near it. It was part of the “servant’s quarters”, as the house agent had referred to them when they’d first enquired about the property, only connected with the rest of the building via a rickety flight of stairs which led to the kitchen.

Not that Mrs. Ward ever complained. Her suite of rooms had been decorated and kitted out beautifully, along with all the rest of the house, prior to the men taking occupation. A sailor’s widow in her mid-forties, and with her only son now himself at sea, she’d been recommended to them as a lady who relished the prospect of something to set her abilities to. As the recommendation had come from Ariadne Peters, sister to the Master of St. Bride’s college, Jonty and Orlando had paid close attention to it. They didn’t want their jobs at the college proving surplus to requirements overnight. Mrs. Ward had a big heart, an open mind and a light touch with pastry, which were the best possible qualifications, and in the fortnight they’d been in residence, the men had no complaints.

Their house, a cottage dating to Tudor times but adorned with later extensions and amendments, had previously belonged to an old lady who’d died. Jonty had spied the property out before Christmas and fallen in love with it. He’d whisked Orlando up there the very evening he agreed to buying a house and the cottage had weaved its magic on him too. They’d bought it before anyone else could, then set to with plans for improvements.

Or, to be accurate, Helena Stewart, Jonty’s mother, had descended on her broomstick and taken all the plans for enhancements in hand, as “her lads” were so busy with university business. Soon the Madingley Road was alive with decoration, renovations, plumbing and installation of proper central heating, all without losing an ounce of the property’s charm. It was only a matter of weeks before it was habitable and on February the first they took possession.

“Should I carry you over the threshold?” Jonty had been barely able to restrain the bliss in his voice when they’d taken possession. “Or you me? We could even go in, then come back out so we both get a go…” His words had been stopped in the most effective way, by a single, protracted kiss—allowable only as no one else was within a half a mile’s sight.

Now it felt as if they’d lived in this house forever. Orlando, whose home for many years had consisted of a set of rooms in St. Bride’s in which no one but his students and the Master were allowed—and a chair in the Senior Common Room which no one cared to sit next to—was amazed that his horizons had expanded so far. He kept a room back in college for supervisions, as did Jonty, and their chairs still stood side by side in the SCR, inviolate, but now Orlando had a cottage which he shared in joint names with his lover. He also had second, third, call-them-what-you-would homes in both Sussex and London with the rest of the Stewarts, for whom he was a cross between a fourth son and a favourite son-in-law.

Forsythia Cottage was spacious, affording them each a study to fill with their books, pictures and general clutter. It was well appointed with bedrooms for household and guests, although only one of their beds ever seemed to be slept in on any given night. They always took breakfast together, Mrs. Ward serving up ridiculous quantities of bacon and eggs or—as this morning, when talk turned to names—kedgeree, which was spicy and succulent.

“Shall we have Matthew Ainslie up to Bride’s for High Table?” Jonty’s little nose rose above the newspaper, making him look even more like a small inquisitive mammal than usual.

“Why?” Orlando had managed to avoid having the man visit them through the Michaelmas term, and didn’t want things to change now.

“Because we’re meeting him at the rugby on Wednesday. It would be terribly rude to just shake his hand after the match, say ‘Sorry the university slaughtered Blackheath’, and then just leave him there.”

It was true; Orlando had to admit that would be shoddy treatment. Even for someone who had once made a pass at him up in the woods. He no longer hated Matthew for past indiscretions, nor wanted to kick him in the seat of his pants, but he was sometimes jealous of the affection Jonty felt for a man they’d only met on holiday. “I suppose so. We can let Miss Peters get her teeth into him if he gets out of hand.”

“I’d pay money to see that happen.” Jonty drained his cup and poured another. The late Mr. Ward had tasted the excellent coffee supplied in foreign parts and had taught his wife how to make a good brew.

“I suppose in that case we should see about accommodation for him?”

“No need. He’s been talking about staying at the University Arms, which seems a better idea than having him here. Then he won’t have to listen to your snoring.”

“For the one-hundred-and-ninety-third time, I don’t snore.”

“Don’t you?” Jonty stood up and reached over the table for the marmalade, which his lover had appropriated. “Well, some bloke comes in my bed of a night and reverberates. Perhaps it’s a farmer driving his pigs to market. Ow!”

Orlando had taken advantage of Jonty’s position and landed a hearty slap on his backside. “You’ll get another one of those every time you accuse me of snoring.”

“Seems a positive incentive to keep on doing it then.” Jonty sat down gingerly, although he didn’t mind being whacked by his lover—it often led on to something much more pleasant. “I’ll ring Matthew at lunchtime, then.”

 *****

“Coppersmith! Orlando Coppersmith!” A chap the size of the great north wall of the Eiger came into view, cutting a lane through the throng of people along the touchline. He grabbed Orlando’s hand and pumped it up and down until all the blood flow seemed to cease.

“Morgan.” Orlando was pleased to have remembered the name. “I thought you’d have been playing.” He jabbed a finger at the pitch, a field as muddy as only Cambridge could produce in early spring.

“Dodgy leg.” The man mountain grimaced. “Come to cheer the team on.” He offered his hand to Jonty.

“This is Dr. Stewart.” Orlando made the introduction with pride. “He played here in about 1876.”

“Turn of the century, thank you. I think I may have played against you at some point, Mr. Morgan.” Jonty eyed the man’s broken nose and had the vaguest memory that he might just have been responsible. “You beat us then, but I hope we’ll make amends today. Ah, please excuse us…”

A hubbub broke out pitchside, which seemed to consist of repeated sayings along the lines of “Matthew, you old dog” or “Jonty Stewart, when are you going to get a decent haircut?” Together with muttered harrumphs from Orlando, which might or might not have been welcoming, this was all accompanied by an outbreak of backslapping, handshaking and general bonhomie. At least two of the three present were pleased at the reunion. For Ainslie, meeting Jonty and Orlando was the one positive thing to have come out of last summer’s holiday on Jersey, during which his father had been murdered and these two bright young men had solved the case.

“It’s wonderful to be here at last.” Ainslie breathed deep of the fresh Cambridge air, so much healthier than the latest London smog.

“All we needed was for you to get here.” Jonty’s grin couldn’t have been wider. “Now we can get a pint of IPA inside ourselves before kick-off. Need the warmth and sustenance.”

It proved just as well; the first half of the match was slow, more laboured than they’d hoped, and only the thought of another pint of beer was going to see them through if the second half turned out just as dire.

Orlando went off to find the little boys’ room and discussion turned to matters of dangerous binding in the scrum, when Morgan clapped Jonty on the back, sending him sprawling.

The man had been standing close by for the first half, obviously privy to the flow of wit and repartee which passed between the two fellows of Bride’s and their guest. “I’d never have thought to see old Coppersmith in such high humour. What happened to him the last few years to make such a change?”

“Oh—” Jonty was, for once, lost for words. Why did people have to ask such bloody awkward questions? Ones to which the wrong answer could lead to two years’ hard labour? “Ah, he, um, met a lady who had an extraordinary effect upon him.”

“The old dog. I was always convinced he would turn out to be a confirmed bachelor. Any sign of wedding bells?”

“I doubt it. She loves another, you know. Still, he burns a light for her.” Jonty was surprised by Orlando slapping his shoulder. He wasn’t certain whether his lover had heard what he’d said, although the man would have to be blind not to notice Ainslie’s secretive grin.

The game began again, with a bit more swashbuckling spirit on display and, as always seemed to happen, some wag asking whether the referee might benefit from borrowing Stewart’s spectacles. A stiff talking-to had no doubt been delivered with the half-time oranges and the end result of two goals all was regarded as being fair.

“Close call, eh?” Ainslie kept his voice low.

“The match or what he asked?” Jonty looked sidelong at his guest.

The crowds were wending their way back to colleges, pubs, the train station, wherever they’d come from. Morgan had buttonholed Orlando and was bending his ear up ahead on the path from Grange Road to the river. It was getting dark, the lights of Cambridge appearing like stars in the gloaming.

“It’s always the same old story, isn’t it? Lies and subterfuge.” Ainslie shivered, as did his host. The growing coolness in the air didn’t chill them half as much as the thought of the many little deceptions which pervaded their lives.

“I know.” They’d reached the river Cam, Orlando still being regaled with rugby tales and looking like he was desperate to escape. “We’re off to college to change. Meet us in my set for a sherry before dinner.” Jonty shook Ainslie’s hand, watched his neat, strong frame make its way along past St. Catherine’s, then set off to rescue his lover.

 *****

“Why did you have to say that?” Orlando’s room in St. Bride’s provided a sanctuary; here a man could talk freely.

“Say what?” Jonty had forgotten all about the halftime banter. That was forty minutes of rugby, a pleasant walk and a glass of sherry ago.

“About me meeting a lady who loved another. I could hear your voice a mile away. What sort of an impression will they have of me? I thought you didn’t approve of lies.” Orlando was fuming. Far from making him mellow, the beer had turned him belligerent.

“I don’t. Everything I said was true. You met my mama, who is without doubt a lady, and she has had a great effect upon you. And you could never marry her, could you, even if you wanted to?” Jonty looked with regret at the old leather chair by the fire. A nap would be nice but he didn’t suppose he’d be allowed one.

“That’s being pedantic. It may have been the literal truth but it told a misleading story.”

“Well, would you rather I’d said that you’d discovered the delights of my bed, which is the reason why you’re so much more confident and worldly wise? Think of the impression that would have caused, Dr. Coppersmith.” Jonty knew that he was in the right, and he always made the most of moral superiority.

Orlando was about to argue, then sighed and shook his head. “No, I think this was one occasion when the truth wouldn’t have paid.” He stared out of the window, musing. “I did wonder why he was being so friendly. He never used to make a point of talking to me.”

“You probably used to tell him off for sitting in your chair. Or standing on your bit of the pitch. Now that you’re a man of wide social experience, you give off a notable aura of bon viveur. Morgan no doubt sees that you’ve become much more fun to associate with and wishes to become one of your intimates.” Jonty began shifting his clothes, or else they’d never make Hall.

“Don’t rag me. I was incredibly lonely at times at Oxford. I could have done with a bit more beer and camaraderie then.” Orlando hated referring to the loneliness of his pre-Jonty days (or “the blessed times of quiet” as he called them) and if he was doing so now, he must be feeling the emptiness of them.

“Oh, my love. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. We can’t ever go back and change things can we? If we could, our formative years would all have been quite different.”

“I’m sorry.” Orlando’s loneliness now seemed very small beer compared to the horrors Jonty had been forced to endure at school, experiences it had taken him a great deal of time to recover from. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Of course you didn’t, whatever it was. Look, we’re neither of us the men we were and I daily thank God for it.” Jonty, the beer still making his body and spirit glow, felt as though he’d made the wisest pronouncement since the days of Solomon, one which was beyond answer. He was wrong.

“Quite right, too.” Orlando fiddled with his cufflinks. “I know you hate it when I speculate about what would have happened if we hadn’t met, but I can’t help doing it.”

“What if we’d met earlier? I mean what if we’d been opponents in the Varsity Match? I couldn’t have failed to notice you, all gangly legs and unruly curls. I’d have thrown you into touch a few times then we’d have shared a few beers in the bar. It would have been so nice…” There was something about the combination of rugby and beer which made the best of men maudlin.

Orlando snorted. “Well, we could hardly have commenced a relationship out there on the pitch, could we? No, please don’t favour that with an answer. It gives you far too much capacity for making obscene jokes about releasing the ball in the tackle.”

“I do fantasise sometimes, about what it would have been like to find myself at the bottom of a maul with you on top of me. Shame you mathematicians think it beneath yourselves to rummage up a rugger team—the English mob could organise a fixture and, assuming your old Achilles was up to it…” Jonty drifted off into pleasant reverie. He’d never seen his lover play the beautiful game, so it had become a favourite pastime to try to imagine it.

“Perhaps I can persuade them.”

Jonty almost dropped his collar stud. “Do you mean it?”

“Indeed. There’s a few chaps new to the university who could well be encouraged to turn out. And I’d enjoy it, too.” He smiled, full of mischief.

“Oh yes, Orlando? Being able to take me down in the tackle?”

“And rubbing your little nose into the mud a few times. Can’t think of anything better. On a rugby field that is,” Orlando added with a grin. “In here, that’s another matter…”

But the other matter was never explored, any investigation cut short when Matthew Ainslie knocked on the door in search of his glass of sherry.

High Table was excellent, a corner cut of beef being set off with fiery horseradish, and Yorkshire puddings as light as a feather. Ariadne Peters, whose plain looks were always eclipsed by her sparkling conversation, proved as entertaining as ever, and her brother charmed Ainslie with his intelligent interest in publishing.

They took coffee, cheese and fruit in the Senior Common Room, and when Ainslie accidentally sat in Orlando’s chair, the company waited with bated breath for the inevitable explosion of wrath. He astonished them all by sitting in the chair on the other side, letting Jonty take his normal seat. It was a gesture at once simple in its hospitality and profound in its sacrificial nature.

Jonty felt immensely proud of his lover’s good grace and resolved that he’d get an adequate reward when they returned home. The conversation meandered on, the wine, quantities of food and warm atmosphere having a soporific effect, so that Orlando soon suggested they take a little air before they all fell asleep. As the three men strolled along, the night air immediately counteracting the feelings of sleepiness, Ainslie spoke.

“Are you free for coffee tomorrow morning at, shall we say, eleven? I didn’t want to spoil this evening with business, although tomorrow I’d be grateful if I could—” he seemed to be thinking of the correct term, “—consult you on a professional basis.”

Jonty bowed, with only a hint of facetiousness. “That makes us sound conspicuously like Holmes and Watson. I’m available—are you, Dr. Coppersmith?”

Orlando’s face illustrated all the frustration he felt. “No, I’ve college business. And on a Saturday too.” He rolled his eyes.

“Then Dr. Stewart will have to take excellent notes, won’t he?” Ainslie smiled and strolled off, leaving his friends to find a cab to take them back up the Madingley Road.

 *****

Ainslie had found a part of the University Arms where he and his guest could take coffee and talk without being overheard, an important element in his plan, given the potentially delicate nature of the discussion. A University College London man himself, he was enjoying his visit to such a hallowed seat of learning (still hallowed despite Jonty’s tales of his less-than-bright students).

Ainslie had ended up with a degree in literature, a taste for port and some interesting connections, which meant he could indulge his inclination towards other men with both discretion and pleasure. A discretion which had temporarily deserted him on Jersey although, thank the Lord, not one which had stood in the way of his friendship with Stewart and his more aloof companion.

He welcomed his guest at eleven on the dot, pouring out a cup of what proved to be an excellent brew. They chatted amiably for a few moments, mainly about the university’s prospects in the forthcoming cricket season, then Stewart felt it was time to open his own batting.

“You wanted to talk to us about some sort of case, I take it?”

“Indeed. I remember with extreme gratitude your help on Jersey and I know of your success both before and after it.”

Stewart grinned. “You’ve been reading The Times, I suppose, and now you want us to poke our noses into something?”

“That’s an unusual way of putting it, but yes.” Ainslie was impressed to see Stewart produce, along with his glasses, an elegant notepad and an equally elegant propelling pencil with which he began to make notes. The air of objective authority helped to make a painful situation rather more bearable. “I won’t beat about the bush. I have a friend who has been accused of murder. He assures me that he’s innocent and I believe that to be the truth. I would like you to see if you can find any evidence to support his case.”

“When is this due to come to court?” Stewart’s pencil tapped on the page.

“There’s likely to be a delay while an important medical witness is recalled from abroad, but we can’t be looking at much the other side of Easter.” The window gave a faint reflection. Ainslie, catching sight of his face, was shocked at how pale he’d turned.

Stewart was concerned. “And does his own counsel give him any hope?”

Ainslie stared out of the window, at the children playing on Parker’s Piece, their delight in running on the grass meaning nothing to his unseeing eyes. “Not very much.” All he could see was a face—not his own this time—a handsome young face. One that, time was, had been his greatest delight.

Stewart considered his next question. “If we find evidence that your friend is indeed guilty, what then?”

Ainslie turned, his keen eyes fixing his guest’s equally candid ones. “Then he hangs. I’ll not have facts suppressed just to bring about the desired result. I want the truth.” It hurt to speak every word, yet each had to be said.

Stewart patted his friend’s arm. “Good man. Couldn’t have taken the job without you having said that. Now can I have some details? What’s your friend’s name?”

“Alistair Stafford.”

“Should I know him? I’m sure I’ve heard the name before.”

“He’s the man who sent that letter to Jersey, detailing my alleged sins to someone who wished to besmirch my reputation.” Ainslie watched the children playing yet didn’t see them, still registering in his mind’s eye a happier time and place.

“Matthew, I don’t understand, why should you choose to defend him of all people?”

“We were once lovers, Jonty, very fond and close. We had a misunderstanding, a series of them really, and we couldn’t come to any sort of a resolution. We separated under very unsympathetic circumstances—there was a lot of bitterness on his part.” Ainslie’s gaze remained fixed outside. “Which is why he was keen to give information to my business rival. Spite. Or revenge.”

“It’s very magnanimous of you to be going to his aid. Was there some rapprochement over the last few months?”

“No, it was his sister who approached me.” Ainslie remembered Angela Stafford with fondness—she had never betrayed his friendship. “His mother and father decided to sever ties with him when they discovered where his affections lay. Miss Stafford knew we’d been very close, knew we’d parted, but had no idea, obviously, of Alistair’s subsequent betrayal. I didn’t enlighten her.” He at last brought his gaze back into the room.

“Of course not. Yet you still agreed to help?” Stewart looked so outraged that Ainslie smiled, despite the turmoil in his mind.

“Not there and then, but I agreed to meet him and hear his side of the tale. I was sufficiently convinced—well, to be here now.”

Stewart laid down his pencil for a moment. “I feel unworthy to be given such a responsibility. The things we’ve been involved with in the past haven’t been that important, or rather our role within them hasn’t. The police would have solved those first two crimes anyway, irrespective of our input. Is there no one else you could ask for help? Someone more competent?”

“There may be, but there’s no one I trust half as well as I do you and Dr. Coppersmith. I can be completely candid with you and I’m learning to be so with him. If there’s anything to be found, I’m sure that you’re the men to find it.”

The intellectual detective tried hard not to beam and poised his pencil again. “Can I take a few details?”

“I have some notes here for you—” Ainslie produced a large envelope, “—although I can give you a summary. A man was found dead in his house in Dorking, down in Surrey, the back of his head smashed in with a poker. Alistair was known to have argued violently with him just days before, threatening his life.”

“And the man’s name?”

“Lord Christopher Jardine.” Ainslie almost flinched, so sudden was the change in Stewart’s normally good-humoured face. “Did you know him?”

“There was a boy of that name at my school.” Stewart was making his face a blank, a mask over it to hide all feeling.

“He’d be a few years older than you.”

“Then I did know him.” Stewart fiddled with his pencil, some deep emotion welling up, threatening to engulf him.

“I’m sorry.” Ainslie’s words were sincere but they sounded feeble.

“So am I, Matthew. Sorry I ever made his acquaintance."

RJ Scott

USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, fire fighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.

She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.

Josh Lanyon

Bestselling author of over sixty titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON has been called "the Agatha Christie of gay mystery."

Her work has been translated into eleven languages. The FBI thriller Fair Game was the first male/male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan's annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list).

The Adrien English Series was awarded All Time Favorite Male Male Couple in the 2nd Annual contest held by the Goodreads M/M Group (which has over 22,000 members). Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads Favorite M/M Author Lifetime Achievement award.

Josh is married and they live in Southern California.

Mary Calmes
Mary Calmes lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and two children and loves all the seasons except summer. She graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Due to the fact that it is English lit and not English grammar, do not ask her to point out a clause for you, as it will so not happen. She loves writing, becoming immersed in the process, and falling into the work. She can even tell you what her characters smell like. She loves buying books and going to conventions to meet her fans.

Charlie Cochrane

As Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice - like managing a rugby team - she writes. Her favourite genre is gay fiction, predominantly historical romances/mysteries, but she's making an increasing number of forays into the modern day. She's even been known to write about gay werewolves - albeit highly respectable ones.

Her Cambridge Fellows series of Edwardian romantic mysteries were instrumental in seeing her named Speak Its Name Author of the Year 2009. She’s a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and International Thriller Writers Inc.

Happily married, with a house full of daughters, Charlie tries to juggle writing with the rest of a busy life. She loves reading, theatre, good food and watching sport. Her ideal day would be a morning walking along a beach, an afternoon spent watching rugby and a church service in the evening.

RJ Scott

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