Gaslight Mystery #2
Something about Simon Hart’s new PI partner Michael McCree—not to mention his secret vocation—invites trouble. Simon finds himself sparring with shadows: in the hidden bedrooms of a roaring twenties version of a gay bar…as a chained wall decoration in the flat of a thief and sexual deviant…as the quarry in a deadly confrontation in an exhibitionist’s bed…and finally in a sewer tunnel beneath the streets of a 1923 city somewhere in Ireland.
Above all, Simon is sparring with the shadow of his own secret urges. Michael will not allow him to turn away from a kind of private investigation of which he has not even dreamed, until now.
Follow a fastidious, surly investigator and his randy yet secretive partner through the very cracks in a city of gaslights and vintage motorcars, into a hidden homosexual culture, as both men find themselves sparring with shadows.
Original Review May 2014:
I read all three books and since the time frame from page 1 of Heart to Hart to the last page of To the Bone only covers about two to three weeks, I'm going to do an overall review for these entries. I won't lie, the beginning was a bit tricky to get into with the Irish slang of the time but I was able to become comfortable with it after only a chapter or so. As I write this I am thinking that it had more to do with me not letting go of the previous book before starting this series and less of the slang language, but whatever the reason, after that first chapter I was hooked. Simon and Michael grabbed my heart and didn't let go. I loved the humorous banter between the new found partners. I found them to be very enjoyable and likeable despite their moments of infuriating debates. At times, they reminded me very much of the banter and bickering of Bogey and Bacall in The Big Sleep. The mysteries are quite intriguing and definitely hold the reader's interest as does the humor and the obvious attraction between the pair. Michael McCree and Simon Hart are a captivating pair that I look forward to read many times over.
Overall Series 1st Re-Read Review 2016:
Gaslight Mysteries in another one of those series that even knowing who did what, why, and how it still gets me sitting on the edge of my seat. Simon and Michael may be polar opposites when it comes to attitude and how they face life but at the heart of it all they are a perfect match. The offset each other in a way that only makes them stronger. I'll definitely be revisiting this investigative duo more than once in the upcoming years, perhaps not annually but I'll say hi to them again.
RATING:
Erin O'Quinn
Series
Gaslight Mysteries in another one of those series that even knowing who did what, why, and how it still gets me sitting on the edge of my seat. Simon and Michael may be polar opposites when it comes to attitude and how they face life but at the heart of it all they are a perfect match. The offset each other in a way that only makes them stronger. I'll definitely be revisiting this investigative duo more than once in the upcoming years, perhaps not annually but I'll say hi to them again.
Simon felt happy. A fleeting sense of well-being, of some satisfying dream just resolved, caused him to waken slowly instead of experiencing his usual jolt into reality. He was warm. In fact, an unusual kind of heat had invaded the entire area of his groin. Instead of fighting it, he sank into it, allowing his penis to sit rigidly in a place of refuge. He pushed closer to the source of emanating warmth. And then it moved.
His haven, his harbor, seized the entire length of his flesh with a gentle squeeze, and he moaned, spurring it deeper, willing the dream to continue.
At some level, he realized he’d entered Michael, whether by his own urgent need or by his bedmate’s polished maneuvering. Other than his inner muscle’s sudden seizure, the man was not moving at all, letting Simon push into his anus and groan into his broad back.
For once in his life, Simon let his needing flesh dictate his actions. The sensation of being inside another human being had thickened him, made him harder and longer than he’d ever been. The hot walls of his lover’s rectum seemed to swell and subside, collapse and widen as he thrust himself to the very root of his testicles. And then he withdrew a few inches, only to slam himself into those walls again, plunging and battering.
Now Michael’s buttocks had begun to move in waves and swells, letting Simon ride him, urge him, run him while he cried out a name in his approaching release. The moment of climax left him shuddering in joy and disbelief, biting into the man’s back, drawing blood.
Not once had Michael uttered a word. It was as though he had slept through Simon’s own dream and now was returning to deep slumber. Grateful, Simon lay with his arms around the big man’s chest, his penis still inside the hot buttocks, listening to his own heart crash against his ribs.
Before he withdrew and rolled to the far side, Simon let his lips move against Michael’s naked shoulders. It was a silent appreciation, lasting only a few seconds, and then he escaped the large mahogany bed.
His jock strap was halfway down his shins, and his kaffies were nowhere to be seen. He let the underwear drop to the carpet. Seizing his robe from the leather chair, he shrugged it on and reached into his linen chest. Towel in hand, he left without looking back, closing the door softly behind him.
Almost running down the thinly carpeted hallway on this way to the tenants’ bathing room, Simon almost wished he’d looked back. Would Michael still have been pretending sleep? Or would he have been watching him in the soft gaslight as he made his escape?
He tried the door of the water closet, and the lever gave to his pull. Once inside the small room, he bolted the door and disrobed.
Simon stood in the small claw-footed bathtub, watching the water fill, realizing this room was the only one where he could truly be alone. Even his own bedchamber was now the stalking ground of his new roomer, a circumstance he himself had allowed to exist.
He settled into the water, letting his sticky groin become immersed in the cleansing warmth. He could lavish only about ten minutes here before the next roomer would no doubt beat on the door, demanding his turn on the toilet or in the cast iron tub.
He let his head fall back and his shoulders relax. His mouth, too, moved in an inchoate smile, remembering his astonishing climax. Michael. His conniving, experienced, constantly aroused flat-mate had maneuvered him into an act of anal intercourse.
From that moment, there could be no question as to whether Simon was a practicing omi-palone. Michael had caused him to enter a realm that set him forever after in a special niche. He had just entered the world of homosexual men. Until a while ago, Simon could still fool himself into thinking Michael had taken him by force. From now on, the conniving bastard seemed to be saying, Simon was the sodomite.
He wondered how he’d explain that to the melancholy-eyed God he sometimes prayed to.
Erin O’Quinn earned a BA (English) and MA (Comparative Literature) from the University of Southern California. Her life has been a pastiche of fascinating vocations—newspaper marketing manager, university teacher, car salesperson, landscape gardener—until now, in relative retirement, she lives and writes in a small town in central Texas.
O'Quinn has authored more thgan 50 books. Two-thirds are M/M mystery-romance. The others are fantasy for all ages and M/F romance-fantasy.
Sparring with Shadows #2
KOBO / iTUNES / GOODREADS TBR
Series
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