|
|
 |
Gay mystery plumbs America's dark underside
By
Michael Bronski
The Burning Plain
Michael Nava
G.P. Putnam's Sons
How to order
Michael Nava has garnered critical and popular acclaim for his mystery stories featuring Henry Rios, a gay Mexican-American detective and lawyer. In the 1997
The Death of Friends, Henry's best friend was murdered.
The novel was tightly-plotted, deeply moving, and intelligent, moving Nava to a new level as a writer. Like the "mystery" novels of P.D. James or Ruth Rendell,
The Death of Friends was much more about the human heart and
the intricacies of human experience than a simple whodunit.
Henry Rios appears again in The Burning
Plain (G. P. Putnam's Sons, cloth, 347 pages,
$23.95), this time in even more trouble. Still recovering from his last loss, Rios has taken up with
a young man, who is murdered shortly after saying goodnight to Henry after a date. The police initially suspect Henry, who they see as a homosexual troublemaker and legal antagonist. The situation only grows worse after
two more young men are killed. Rios is the prime suspect.
Nava has a great understanding of gay life and the urban scene of Los Angeles and its environs. His ability to create atmosphere and minor characters is terrific and highly evocative. Like Raymond
Chandler and James M. Cain, Nava has the sleazy (and intermittently wonderful) world of California
noir down pat. But what he brings to his books- missing from so many other mystery writer's work- is a sharp sense of
how homosexuality functions as both a catalyst and indicator of social and psychological unease. The homophobia (of the straight characters) in Nava's work fuels his plots, but it also exposes society's deeper,
darker underpinnings. In The Burning
Plain, Nava proves himself, once again, expert in combining plot and atmosphere, suspense and politics. Like P.D. James and Caleb Carr, Nava writes "thinking
persons'" mysteries. The Burning Plain is that rare thing: a cunning mystery and a serious novel.
| Author Profile: Michael Bronski |
|
Michael Bronski is the author of
Culture Clash: The Making of Gay
Sensibility and The Pleasure
Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the
Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes
frequently on sex, books, movies, and
culture, and lives in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. |
| Email: |
mabronski@aol.com |
You are not logged in.
No comments yet, but
click here to be the first to comment on this
Book Review!
|
