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It is good to see another novel in Dorien Grey's Dick Hardesty series appearing on the crime fiction shelves. Grey has been steadily augmenting his audience for the mysteries featuring gay private investigator Dick Hardesty. This tenth outing displays the development of the author as his plotting and writing become increasingly skilled. Dick and his young lover Jonathan are settling well into their role of parents to Jonathan's nephew Joshua. Jonathan, who was the more determined of the senior duo to become a parent, is chafing somewhat at the restrictions imposed by their aping a 'straight' family but on the whole, they comprise a happy household. Then the pair are invited to the opening of a new library housing an important accumulation of papers known as the Burrows Collection. Tragedy strikes during the celebration when one of the cataloguers of the collection is found dead at the bottom of some stairs. The police are inclined to pass the death off as the result of an accidental fall but the board of the library determines to hire Hardesty to investigate -- just in case. In the meantime, Jonathan, a voracious reader who is pleasantly overwhelmed at the opportunity to meet his favourite author at the library opening, becomes the object of unusual interest for that writer, Evan Knight. For a time, Dick must muffle feelings of jealousy when Jonathan admits that he finds the writer attractive in more than literary matters. Meanwhile, Dick pursues his investigations which lead him to seek the help of an old friend who grew up with the dead cataloguer. Dorien Grey, while setting out all the clues to the mystery quite fairly, is not above dragging a few small fish of an interesting hue across the path of the reader. The plot is well-constructed and intriguing. His characters are, as ever, skilfully drawn. No doubt readers of Hardesty's early adventures will welcome the return of Teddy Wilson, aka the flamboyantly colourful drag queen, Tondalaya O'Tool. It is interesting to see how the character of Jonathan is developing, losing some of that naivete which may initially have astonished readers who perhaps wondered how a man who had been through ordeals such as those suffered by Dick's lover could have retained quite so much apparent innocence in his character. Joshua, too, is growing up though his development is not yet so apparent as Jonathan's.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, July 2005
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