Murder in the Rue Dauphine: A Mystery [Paperback]

This book is bad, doubled.

It appears that author Greg Herren was determined not to ignore any cliche of gay fiction lest one of them gets its feelings hurt, nearly so every character is trim, works out, parties all night, and cheats on his lover. Those who are not are homely, pathetic trolls with whom no self-respecting man would tryst.

Herren attempts to combine a hard-boiled style with the wisecracking of newer detectives and standard gay fiction, which doesn't work as well as you'd hope. A lot of the exposition falls flat and the dialog is clumsy, though realistic, as though Herren had simply spent an evening in bars taking notes. When will writes learn that this doesn't work?

The "mystery" of the initial murder is so simplistic as to be laughable. The deeper complications involving gay-bashing and male escorts rely far too much on coincidence than detective work.

New Orleans, a city that should make a fantastic backdrop for any novel, does not make an appearance. Instead, Herren trots out a list of tourist sites.

Overall, I'd give it a miss.

I was not disappointed in the setting of the book coming alive. Mr. Herren does a very good job of taking the reader to New Orleans. Chanse is a pretty fun character, if a little too "gay perfect," at times. I really liked his "Grace," Paige. I felt he was a bit too steroetypical with his villian, though. The plot, while predictable at times, was fun enough to keep me interested and, in the end, I was surprised at who the actual killer was.

My biggest problem was with the editing. It seems Mr. Herren, who edits other people's work for anthologies, didn't edit his own. For instance, Chanse and another character are talking about Paul, Chanse's maybe boyfriend, and Herren refers to one of the characters talking as Paul. There are other such instances of the editor not paying attention here and there that, while distracting, didn't take away from the book as a whole. Also, while I am sure it is just one of Mr. Herren's fetishes, from what I saw when there,not every hot guy in New Orleans walks around in "white tank tops a size too small."

Over all a pleasant little mystery and I would probably pick up another if this becomes a series.