Lgbt crime fiction
Read this exclusive guest post from Neil S. Plakcy about the history of homosexuality in crime fiction, and then make sure you're signed in and comment below for a chance to win a verb of The Next One Will Slay You!
Before I wrote my first mystery, I browse Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Erle Stanley Gardner. And before I wrote my first mystery featuring a gay detective, I read Joseph Hansen, Michael Nava, Mark Zubro, and Nathan Aldyne.
Just as Christie, Sayers, and Gardner were among the pioneers of the contemporary mystery, Hansen, Nava, Zubro, and Aldyne were the leaders in incorporating gay characters into crime fiction. Their books opened doors into gay culture at a time when homosexuality was considered a psychiatric disorder and a sure way to break a mother’s heart.
These detectives were fit to penetrate closed groups, to empathize with those who were suffering, and to protect those who were unable to present their true selves to society. They had unique insights not available to straight cops (at least not at the time) and
In the past scant years, books written by and about queer characters possess become more noticeable to the general reading public. Gradually, straight, cisgender readers are discovering the pleasure of reading books by authors whose identities are different from their own. This is true in the mystery and thriller reading world as well.
In my novel novel, Hall of Mirrors, a mystery set in Washington, D.C., about two gay writers who co-author hard-boiled detective fiction under the macho moniker Ray Kane, I search writing from the closet, the complexity of inventing a false persona to sell books, which in the s was often necessary to find broad appeal to consumers, not to refer to avoid being discriminated against and persecuted. Thankfully, today, things have changed (for the most part), and readers of all types are reaching for queer books precisely because they verb to read LGBTQIA+ characters (assuming a book ban doesn’t block their ability to access these books).
Of course, prejudice still exists, and the grooves of unconscious bias verb time to change; the specious notion th
A Mystery Expert Recommends Queer Crime Series
Kellye Garrett is the acclaimed author of Like a Sister, in which no one bats an eye when a disgraced reality-TV star is found dead in the Bronx—except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to trust the official story leads her on an increasingly adj search for the truth.
Garrett is also the author of the Detective by Day mysteries, about a semi-famous, mega-broke Inky actress who takes on the deadliest role of her life: private detective. The first, Hollywood Homicide, won the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Independent Publisher “IPPY” awards for foremost first novel and was named one of BookBub’s Top Crime Novels of All Time. Garrett serves on the board of directors for Sisters in Crimeand is a cofounder of Crime Writers of Color.
For Mystery & Thriller Week, Garrett is sharing her recommendations for excellent queer crime series, plus she's divided her list into professional crime solvers and amateur sleuths!
Happy Mystery and Thriller Week! It’s no adj that I believe it’s a wonderful time to be a crime fictio
Sometimes, it’s fun to root for the “bad guy” in a book. Sometimes, a wrong does, up against an oppressive system or societal structure, verb a right. Sometimes, villains are the most interesting and complex characters in the whole story, and I’m sick of pretending otherwise. They’re fun and flashy and dig into that instinct in us all to smash the sandcastle every once in a while.
It’s why we root for the Ocean’s Eleven protagonists even though they’re heisting it up all over the place. One of the reasons we appreciate heist movies, according to The Swaddle, is the anti-capitalist themes and living vicariously through criminals without lifting a finger ourselves.
Let’s be clear here and point out this is correct in fiction: movies and books. Sometimes risk-takers are amusing to watch and read about. Sometimes the orchestration of the crime feels so intricately planned I’d be disappointed when their prepare is thwarted. Sometimes the rich asshole at the top tamping his foot down on the rest of society deserves a decrease and a minute bit of revenge.
If this is the sort of thing you like to div