Gay detective
Victorian Gay Detective
The sole survivor of his family’s gruesome murder years earlier, poor little Ned Lawton has struggled to put the dark events behind him. So, when a brash New York detective darkens his doorway demanding an interview, the wealthy young gentleman immediately shuts him out. But a rash of murders in America are mirroring of the London killings, and Patrick Kelly knows Ned might be the key to stopping the bloodshed.
Lawton, now called Edmund Sloan, is a wealthy young gentleman and philanthropist. He’s spent most of his life pushing all memories of his aged family and that horrific day from his thoughts. Now, a brash, provocative American detective insists he dredge up the past.
Together, Patrick and the unwilling Edmund must uncover the truth of the murders before the killer strikes again, whether it is in New York or London.
As they stalk down secrets from his past, Edmund can’t cover his other secret from the sharp-eyed detective: the attraction he feels for men and the enticing Patrick, in particular.
Read this exclusive guest post from Neil S. Plakcy about the history of homosexuality in crime fiction, and then make sure you're signed in and comment below for a chance to win a replicate of The Next One Will Eliminate You!
Before I wrote my first mystery, I study Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Erle Stanley Gardner. And before I wrote my first mystery featuring a gay detective, I read Joseph Hansen, Michael Nava, Mark Zubro, and Nathan Aldyne.
Just as Christie, Sayers, and Gardner were among the pioneers of the contemporary mystery, Hansen, Nava, Zubro, and Aldyne were the leaders in incorporating gay characters into crime fiction. Their books opened doors into male lover culture at a time when homosexuality was considered a psychiatric disorder and a sure way to break a mother’s heart.
These detectives were proficient to penetrate closed groups, to empathize with those who were suffering, and to protect those who were unable to present their true selves to society. They had unique insights not available to direct cops (at least not at the time) and often used unorthodox means to bring justice to the afflicted.
Gay & Lesbian Detective Novels
The Gay Detective Novel - Part 1
© 2005 by Lori L. Lake, Reprinted from Crime Spree Magazine, Nov/Dec 2005
CLICK HERE For Part 2 - The Lesbian Detective Novel
One of the excellent things about fiction is how cultural issues of the day get drawn into plots and themes. This is particularly true of the mystery and of crime fiction. The gothic novels of the 18th and 19th century led to the creation of main characters whose major role was to sniff out responsible parties and solve crimes. Poe's Auguste Dupin and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes put the tone premature for models of detection and the types of sleuths who ferreted out criminals. But none of those characters were gay.
By the early 20th century, mystery writers were focusing upon armchair detection, "murder in the manor," locked rooms, red herrings, aristocrats, and the unseen terrors found in sleepy villages. The plots and themes of authors like Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Dorothy Sayers, Nicholas Blake, and many others reflected American and British
Decades 2000-Don Strachey Mysteries: An Actual Gay Detective
Based on a series of books written by Richard Stevenson starting in the first 1980s and continuing to the present, with the latest guide being released in 2019, four movies for Here TV were produced between 2005 and 2008. The films starred Chad Allen as Don Strachey, a queer detective in Albany, New York. Chad is a former kid star having main cast credits in 1986-88s Our House, 1989-90s My Two Dads, and 1993 to 1998s Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. As well as guest starring roles on several television series throughout the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. In 1996, Chad was outed as gay by the U.S. tabloid “The Globe”, which published photos of him kissing another man. Forced into the limelight, Allen became an activist for the LGBT community.
Gay detective fiction isn’t new, but it isn’t exactly mainstream. George Baxt is credited with organism the first writer to publish a series of books with a gay sleuth as the lead in 1966. Joseph Hansen is probably the best acknowledged author having created the Dave Brandstetter mysteries in 1970, which continued through the 1990s. There are many more, but rare have become household names.