The Death of Blue Mountain Cat


Book Description

In this “exciting” sequel to The Man Who Understood Cats, psychiatrist Jack Caleb and cop John Thinnes must solve the murder of a Native American artist (Library Journal). Native American artist Blue Mountain Cat seems determined to provoke controversy with his new installation, which strikes art patron Jack Caleb as “Andy Warhol meets Jonathan Swift in Indian country.” As the artist’s former therapist, Caleb can’t help wondering what is driving this new aggressively satirical direction with pieces like Red Man’s Revenge and Native American Gothic. There’s something to offend everybody, many of whom are at the opening—including a litigious developer, an outraged Navajo woman, a black-market antiquities dealer, and the artist’s stunning blond wife, who discovers her husband stabbed to death in a gallery room with a bone knife from his own exhibit. When Chicago homicide detective John Thinnes arrives at the museum, he drafts his friend Caleb to help him navigate the crime scene and the terra incognita of the art world. As the suspects expand to include a desperate museum director, a savage critic, a married mistress, and a shady partner, the shrink and the cop once again find themselves something of an odd couple but a very effective detective duo . . .




Death in West Wheeling


Book Description

“Breakneck pace and solid atmosphere are the hallmarks here.” —AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION When a local schoolteacher disappears from rural West Wheeling, acting sheriff Homer Deters investigates. Before long he's got three more missing persons, two unidentified bodies, a car theft, a twenty-three-vehicle pile-up in the center of town, a missing tiger, and a squad of agitated ATF agents to deal with. With no help from the Feds, Homer turns to his buddy, Rye Willis, and West Wheeling's eccentric postmistress, Nina Ross, to locate the missing, identify the bodies, and bring a murderer to justice. Packed with regional charm and Deters’ wit, Death in West Wheeling shows how wild one case can get.




Courtin' Murder in West Wheeling


Book Description

Sheriff Homer Deters returns in the “delightful” sequel to Death in West Wheeling from the award-winning author of the Caleb and Thinnes mysteries (Publishers Weekly). When Sheriff Homer Deters’ proposal to his sweetheart is interrupted by the report of a body in a ditch, he discovers the corpse is skeletal and half the town has trampled through the scene. Before the investigation gains traction, someone turns a truckload of actual mustangs loose in the Truck Stop parking lot. And when the truck driver is subsequently murdered, Homer has a real whodunit on his hands. Complaints about rats and transients, jackasses of the two and four-legged variety, and a series of hijackings interrupt both investigations. While Homer tries to sort things out, a local farmer is murdered and dumped in another ditch. With help from the State Police and plenty of assistance from his sweetheart, deputy, and adopted son, the West Wheeling Sheriff manages to survive an Indian uprising, West Wheeling’s Oktoberfest, and Sadie Hawkins Day. He just has to solve the murders while he’s at it. Praise for Death in West Wheeling “Dymmoch pushes into Joan Hess territory with this rollicking tale of murder, moonshine and madcap law enforcement . . . Dymmoch handles this farcical crime wave with down-home warmth and humor.”—Kirkus Reviews “Homer keeps his cool, handily solving murders and disappearances. Breakneck pace and solid atmosphere are the hallmarks here.”—Booklist




The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film


Book Description

In The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film (2005), scholar Drewey Wayne Gunn examined the history of gay detectives beginning with the first recognized gay novel, The Heart in Exile, which appeared in 1953. In the years since the original edition's publication, hundreds of novels and short stories in this sub-genre have been produced, and Gunn has unearthed many additional representations previously unrecorded. In this new edition, Gunn provides an overview of milestones in the development of gay detectives over the last several decades. Also included in this volume is an annotated list of novels, short stories, plays, graphic novels, comic strips, films, and television series with gay detectives, gay sleuths of secondary importance, and non-sleuthing gay policemen. The most complete listing available--including the only listing of early gay pulp novels, present-day male-to-male romances, and erotic films--this new edition brings the work up to date with publications missed in the first edition, particularly cross-genre mysteries, early pulps, and some hard-to-find volumes. The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography lists all printed works in English (including translations) presently known to include gay detectives (such as amateur sleuths, police detectives, private investigators, and investigative reporters), from the 1929 play Rope until the present day. It includes all films in English, subtitled or dubbed, from the screen version of Rope in 1948 and the launch of the independent film Spy on the Fly in 1966 through the end of 2011. Complete with two appendices--a bibliography of sources and a list of Lambda Literary Awards--and indexes of titles, detectives, and actors, this extensively revised and updated reference will prove invaluable to mystery collectors, researchers, aficionados of the subgenre, and those devoted to GLBTQ studies.




The Feline Friendship


Book Description

Psychiatrist Jack Caleb and Chicago cop John Thinnes return in this “well-crafted procedural . . . intriguingly presented . . . spiked by psychological insight” (Booklist). After a woman is brutally raped in the posh Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago and a second rape victim is murdered, the hunt for a serial rapist/killer becomes a “heater” case, front-burnered due to the scrutiny of publicity. The pressure is on Det. John Thinnes and his new partner, a strong-willed feminist cop named Don Franchi. Psychiatrist Jack Caleb is acting as a police consultant to construct a psychological profile of the rapist, and Thinnes asks his friend to step in and mediate the friction between him and his partner. If they’re going to solve an increasingly complicated and disturbing case that matches the MO of earlier, similar crimes in another Illinois city, they need to find a way to work together . . .




Pennsylvania Wild Cats


Book Description




The Fall


Book Description

How far would you go to save your life and your world? After a nasty divorce, single mother Joanne Lessing finally has her life together, and she’s made a name for herself as a photographer. Then, while on assignment, she witnesses a hit and run. Property damage only. No big deal, she thinks. So she does the right thing—calls the cops. Joanne is dismayed when FBI agents arrive with the local detective. They admit the hit and run driver was a mob killer fleeing the scene of his latest hit. Joanne is relieved to find she can’t really identify the hit man. But when she sees the killer again while on another assignment, she takes his picture and finds her new life and her son’s future threatened. Caught between the Mob and the FBI, she’s on her own...




Sequels


Book Description

A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.




White Tiger


Book Description

The murder of a Vietnamese woman reawakens wartime trauma for cop John Thinnes and psychiatrist Jack Caleb in an “absolutely gripping” police procedural (Chicago Tribune). After a woman is shot in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Chicago, Detective John Thinnes realizes he knew the victim when he was stationed in Vietnam. In fact, he was the best man when his friend Bobby Lee married Hue An. When an anonymous tip comes in that Thinnes might be the real father of her son, Tien Lee, who is the prime suspect in her murder, he is pulled off the case and his partner Don Franchi takes over. At Hue An Lee’s wake, a schizophrenic man insists there is a connection between her death and an unsolved murder in wartime Saigon. Psychiatrist Jack Caleb is called in to help the schizophrenic mourner, but the therapy is kicking up his own PTSD from serving as a medic during the war. Working with Caleb, Thinnes remembers a deadly criminal from his days as an MP in Saigon—known as White Tiger—who he fears has resurfaced in Chicago. Now it’s up to the two vets to stop him . . .




The Gay Detective Novel


Book Description

Gertrude Stein called it "the only really modern novel form that has come into existence," yet the mystery genre was a century old before it featured its first gay main character in a novel. Since then, gay and lesbian detective fiction has been one of the fastest growing segments of the genre. It incorporates gay and lesbian cultural elements and offers crossover appeal. Its authors call upon a century of development in the mystery genre, while providing new, more accurate images of lesbians and gay men than generally found in mainstream literature and popular media. This groundbreaking study of gay and lesbian detective fiction examines mystery series and historically significant stand-alone novels published since the early 1960s. Part I is an overview that describes how these novels make gay and lesbian life visible and forge new, powerful images. It also examines how they fit into the larger history of mystery fiction. The series analyses in Part II are grouped according to the type of main character (police officer, private investigator, amateur sleuth, etc.). Each section discusses main and secondary characters of that type, characteristic themes for the group, and more. The analyses of individual series cover main characters, themes, plot points and other elements. Comments from authors interviewed for this book play a central role in those analyses. Part III lists series-spanning themes (e.g., homophobia, the closet, gay marriage) and the novels and series that address each of those themes.