His Name is John by Dorien Grey

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Reviewed by Richard Labonte, Book Marks (http://www.qsyndicate.com/)

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Grey, author of a dozen well-plotted and comfortingly formulaic Dick Hardesty mysteries, breaks entertaining new ground with the enigmatic debut of a different series. This time around, his sleuth isn't, like Hardesty, a professional PI. Elliott Smith is the scion of a wealthy family who, rather than living off his trust funds, works for a living as an architecturally sensitive real estate speculator. The mystery is decidedly different, too: though Smith does in the course of the story figure out who the killer is, his real focus is on identifying who was killed - because he's being haunted by the unsettled ghost of a man who died beside him in a hospital's emergency room, and who has lost his identity. Grey's mysteries are relatively placid affairs, as gay whodunits (or, in this instance, who-it-was-dun-tos) go: there's very little blood and the man-on-man sex is more romantic than explicit. But Grey's writing is simultaneously sinewy and seductive, always appealingly lean and emotionally precise - the perfect formula for solid storytelling.

http://www.doriengrey.com