The Geography of Murder by P. A . Brown

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by MLR Press
Pages: 273

Jason Aaron Zachary knew it was bound to be a bad day when he woke up next to a corpse who’d hours before had had his head bashed in. But things quickly grew worse as he was yanked to his feet and cuffed by a Santa Barbara Police detective named Alex Spider. A few hours later he was booked for murder one and sent to the county lockup to await arraignment.

Detective Alexander Spider, an openly gay police officer, had an immediate gut level attraction to Jason, but the kid was the kind of punk going down the toilet fast. Jason looked like he was into drugs, hustling , and about to be slapped with an open-and-shut case of murder one. But something didn’t smell right about the case. It seemed too easy, like someone had set the kid up to take a fall.

When things looked darkest, Jason couldn’t believe it when Spider paid him a visit in the county lockup, telling him there was new evidence that proved Jason’s innocence. Hours later, Jason found himself free from jail and riding home with this macho detective stud. Once at home, what Jason thought might lead to some hot sex did, but things got rough, and rougher, and rougher still, until it became clear that Spider intended to beat him into submission, and then own him, body and soul. Jason had leaped from one prison to another. But this new prison had its advantages…

This is not the first P.A. Brown novel I’ve read. So when I picked up this book, I expected a well-plotted murder mystery with the focus on sniffing out clues to solve a difficult murder or two. What I quickly realized was, although there is a murder case for Spider to solve, the guts of this story is a BDMS romance between Spider and Jason – one that takes them from being enemies on opposite sides of the law to painfully exploring the boundaries of a rather kinky relationship.

This story is unusual in that it is told in first person from two different protagonists. Each new chapter switches the narrator, first Jason then Spider, and so on. This POV swapping was slightly jarring at first, but it permitted the author to dive deeply into both characters’ persona, and allowed the reader to know them both intimately. My only issue about this POV switching was that both voices were similar. I felt that the author could have put more effort into making each voice more distinct.

This tale reads fast, and has the author’s usual spot-on attention to detail. The prose is raw, giving insight into the characters behind the words. Yet all too often the author used a word that was so inapt that I was jerked out of the story to ponder the choice of words. One example would be, “He jumped in the car. Cranked it on.” I couldn’t help wonder, how do you crank on a car that was built after 1915? But of course, that is only one of many examples.

The main issue I had with this story was purely a personal one. I didn’t like one of the main characters. I found Spider to be quite the hypocrite. One minute he was on a soapbox making speeches about pedophiles who can’t control their urges, and the next minute he had Jason chained to a wall and whipping him before having unprotected sex. It is difficult to be excited by a romance when you detest one of the players. But like I say, that was purely a personal issue. Most readers will not share my prejudices.

These two characters are drawn together, then struggle to overcome several obstacles. The author skillfully pulled me into their drama, and although there were relatively few sex scenes, they were hot. At times the sex went over the top for my old fashioned sensibilities, but never enough to keep me from flipping to the next page to see what happened next.

P.A. Brown is an exceptionally talented writer, and although I do not consider this story to be on the same level as her other novels, it is a well written, absorbing, and entertaining romance that I can recommend.

http://pabrown.com/

L.A. Boneyard by P. A. Brown

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by MLR Press
Pages: 348

Detective David Eric Laine has a new partner at work and a string of beautiful, pregnant women who turn up murdered. The partner, Jairo, a sexy young Latino who has a wife and kids, has a crush on David. As the two work together, the case unfolds into a situation that involves prostitution, human trafficking, and illegal arms sales to street gangs. If dealing with these issues weren’t bad enough, Jairo’s heavy flirtations become a constant distraction for David. And David, not as strong as he likes to think, is sorely tempted.

That occupies David’s days while his lover, Christopher Bellamere, does everything possible to make David comfortable at home. Chris and Dave have been together for four years, but can their relationship stand the test of Jairo trying to steal David away? And can David hold his relationship together long enough to solve the crime? David seems to be doing fine until he lets down his guard, and a moment of weakness threatens to blow his whole world away.

This is a tense, complex, well-written tale that focuses as much on the crumbling relationship between David and Chris as it does on solving the crime, which is as it should be. David and Chris are great characters, although I wish Chris could have had more page time to deepen his character another notch or two. The complexity of their relationship drew me into their world, and the fact that they are opposites kept me interested in their interactions. I was rooting for them all the way. Although I must say that there were places where the circumstances in the relationship seemed a bit contrived, but certainly not enough to detract from my enjoyment of the story.

The writing is strong, gritty, and the procedural detail is top notch. Brown skillfully weaved together a tapestry of forensics and solid police work to create an interesting story, even as the complexity continued to grow far beyond my expectations. Yet, for all its complexity, there were few dropped threads, and the pace remained even with plenty of action and suspense that kept me turning pages.

This is the third of a series with David and Chris, and unfortunately I have not read the first two, but I was able to easily understand all the nuances of David’s work and home life. This book stands well on its own. My one complaint about this entertaining story is that I felt the resolutions, both for solving the crime and for David and Chris’s relationship, was too hastily wrapped up after such a long drawn out labyrinth of twists and turns. It felt a bit too easy, or perhaps I wanted the story to keep going longer.

Overall this is an engaging read that I highly recommend.

http://www.pabrown.ca/

L.A. Boneyard By P.A. Brown

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by MLR Press
Purchase at www.mlrpress.com

For the record, I only review books I like. If I don't like it, I don't mention it. So, you can be sure before you go any further that I liked this first rate police procedural by Pat Brown, albeit with some reservations.

A rock solid plot and mostly brisk pacing keep the pages turning. LAPD detective David Laine is confronted with a pair of bodies buried in Griffith Park, the start of a particularly grisly murder investigation that take the detective from high rise elegance to ghetto drug-slums, with all kinds of stops in between. Brown's grasp of police procedure is awesome, you'd almost think she'd been there, done that, and she brings The City of the Angels so vividly to life it made this old Angeleno homesick for a burger at Tommy's. Both lend the story a terrific sense of believability, as does a fine ear for dialogue.

On the personal side, David's domestic partner, Chris, is in an accident and then out of town, leaving David pretty much on his own for a while. Not a good time for it, either, as David's new detective partner, sexy Jairo, is coming on to him like gangbusters. David loves Chris, and he wants to be faithful, but he's a guy, and there's an old saying about a stiff willy and its lack of conscience. It isn't long before Jairo has David's willy stiff far beyond the point of clear thinking. Like Jimmy Carter, David is lusting in his heart and in no time Chris is sniffing the situation out and having hizzy fits.

The sexual tension between the two policemen is achingly real, in large part because their characters are brilliantly drawn. David's domestic situation is a bit less convincing, because Chris is not so likeable, though that may be partly my personal aversion to a certain type of gay male, the hizzy fit throwers. In which case the author has made him real enough for me to dislike him, so maybe that counts. And, since the novel is mostly plot driven rather than character driven, Chris's actions generally serve to further the plot. So, he obediently goes out of town when needed or has those fits for no better reason than to ratchet up the tension for David and Jairo. Hey, it works, but it left this reader rooting for super cool Jairo, which may not have been the intended goal.

The mostly fine writing sparkles, but there are problems, too. The Dreaded Spell Check Disease, for one, which leaves the book, like so many today, littered with wrong words: Poured for pored, and plateau for tableau, e.g. There's not much of a cure for the disease, either, except greater care. Maybe a sharp-eyed beta reader? But, the truth is, many of these mistakes will go unnoticed by readers, too. The disease is unfortunately epidemic.

Worse by far is the Curse of the Dangling "He". Worse because, ideally, a novel is like a dream shared by author and reader. One wants the reader to forget he's reading a book, and "live" the story. But there's an abundance of those danglers here, and every time I have to stop and reread a paragraph to figure out who's speaking or doing what, I'm yanked out of the spell. Alas, with practice we perfect our mistakes as well as our virtues, which is to say, this is a writing habit that tends to take over if not weeded out of one's literary garden.

Less critical (but still too important for a writer this good not to get better at it) are an abundance of jarring transitions from one scene or setting to another. This too simply requires paying a bit more attention when shifting gears. Yes, it's extra work. Writing is easy. Writing well takes effort.

The reader will find as he nears the ending, that there is an unnecessary coda, the nature of which I won't divulge, but the story actually stops about five pages before the book does, and the reader can also with no great loss.

These are a writer's kind of complaints, however. They matter only in the sense that they keep a good author from being that much better. They are not likely consciously to effect most readers, who will find this a very enjoyable read, and who will almost certainly plow through it as I did in one sitting, turning the pages steadily to the end.

http://www.pabrown.ca/

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L.A. HEAT by P.A. Brown

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Reviewed by Niel S. Plakcy
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Chris Bellamere seems to live a charmed life in the City of Angels. Blond and handsome, he’s a well-paid computer engineer, living in a luxurious home and tricking with a different sexy guy each night. But darkness lurks even in the sunny environs of LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood.
LA homicide detective David Eric Laine couldn’t be more different. A beefy, hairy bear, deeply closeted, he lives in a crappy house and suffers the homophobic comments of his partner and other officers in silence.

A serial killer brings these two men together—and ultimately into each other’s arms. In P.A. Brown’s debut mystery, L.A. Heat, Detective Laine and his partner are chasing a man they’ve come to call The Carpet Killer, who kidnaps gay men, tortures them, kills them, then wraps them in carpeting for disposal.

This is not the sun-drenched LA of the movies. It’s a workaday vision of this complicated city, from the side streets of Beverly Hills to the deeply wooded canyons where evil lurks. Against his judgment, David finds himself falling in love with Chris, though all clues seem to point to Chris as the killer.

All David’s strength of will must transfer from maintaining his place in the closet to believing that Chris is not the killer himself, but instead the killer’s target. Chris brings his considerable computer talents into play as he seeks information on a former trick, now dead. “While the crackers and the decrypters ran against the database he refreshed his coffee one more time… In another ten minutes his zombie machine registered success. He was in.”
L.A. Heat is not so much a mystery as a thriller, though the clues don’t all come together for our intrepid detectives until the heart-stopping conclusion.

This is a strong new entry in the narrow niche of gay male mystery, and I hope the future brings more adventures for this sexy pair.
http://www.pabrown.ca/