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EVERYONE'S DEAD BUT US
by Mark Richard Zubro
St Martin's Minotaur, July 2006
288 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0312343450


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

There are some reviews you just hate writing, and this is one of them. It's the reviewing equivalent of kicking a lame dog – a pooch you remember from way back when it was lively and feisty and rather cute.

If you have only read Mark Richard Zubro's last two books, then you might be surprised to hear that he was once seen as really rather daring. Fifteen or 20 years ago, gay crime fiction was poking its head out of the mainstream closet, and Zubro's series starring a schoolteacher and his baseball star boyfriend was one of the main players. He was never in the same league as the likes of Michael Nava or Richard Stevenson, but the books tended to be solid and reliable.

In the 21st century, though, and 11 books down the road, this isn't just a series that's jumped the shark. The poor old shark is as dead as Monty Python's parrot. And it stinks to high heaven.

It's hard to put a finger on just where this series lost its way. Now, though, we have a mix of shoddy writing, crass dialogue, dull plotting and thoroughly unpleasant characters. And it's difficult to have any affection for Tom and Scott – the former bitches for America, while the latter is a one-dimensional hunk of a doormat.

In case anyone is bored or sad enough to want to read this train wreck of a book, all you need to know is that Tom and Scott are now hitched and holidaying on the Aegean island of Korkasi. It's an exclusive place frequented by the kind of blinding snobs you'd run across a busy road in rush hour to avoid.

Within the first few pages, we get a murder, an explosion and a violent storm that traps everyone on the island. And then, naturally, more bodies start piling up.

What should have been a dramatic opening section is mired in waffle, bitching and irrelevant information. Most of the narrative and dialogue reads like those bizarre stream of consciousness spam emails you get in your inbox every day. Zubro is the master of non-sequiturs. And if you open the book at random, you'll find countless examples of ghastly writing. My own personal eh? moment came with the following passage:

Scott said: "A killer is on the loose. He shot one man in the head. Most likely the same person caused the explosion which killed many more. Besides being a suspect, your lover could also be dead."

"The rich don't die like that," Fitzgerald stated.

St Martin's have had a long and distinguished history of publishing gay crime fiction. The fact that they and Zubro are allowing this tripe to be published – especially when writers like Josh Lanyon are having to self-publish – is absolutely criminal.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, August 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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