The books are flawed, however; Justice is stupidly reckless in a milieu ravaged by AIDS, and the plotting is so poor that the reader solves the crimes long before he does. But the writing is superb, and the probings into the darker aspects of human nature and behavior are profound. The novels finally surmount their shortcomings to become genuinely disturbing explorations of a bleak existence.

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Lev Raphael's Exploitation of Academia

Much less successful is Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman series, set in the world of academia: Let's Get Criminal (1996), The Edith Wharton Murders (1997), The Death of a Constant Lover (1999), and Little Miss Evil (2000). Hoffman is an English professor and his lover Stefan Borowski is writer-in-residence at the State University of Michigan (based on Michigan State University), where the murders in all four novels occur.

The university community has afforded rich settings for many straight mystery novels but in Raphael's books it is merely an excuse for interminable bitching about academic politics and hypocrisy, and his barbs are so indiscriminate and disproportionate that they overpower what could be a thoughtful exploration of modern university life. In addition, his plots are so filled with likely suspects and his solutions so arbitrary that they fail as satisfying mysteries.

The Mystery as Serious Novel: Michael Nava's Henry Rios Series

By far the best recent series of gay mystery novels is that by five-time Lambda Award winner Michael Nava: The Little Death (1986), Goldenboy (1988), How Town (1990), The Hidden Law (1992), The Death of Friends (1996), The Burning Plain (1998), and Rag and Bone (2001). Nava's protagonist is Henry Rios, a gay Mexican-American lawyer who practices first in the San Francisco Bay area and then in Los Angeles.

Although the cases Rios pursues are intriguing, the novels work less well as mysteries than as explorations of character. Rios is haunted by his dead father, whom he could never please, and he immerses himself in work and alcohol. In the course of the seven novels, he meets and falls in love with a young man who is HIV-positive, watches helplessly as his lover succumbs to the ravages of AIDS, then gradually puts his life back together, falling in love again and reconciling with his remaining family.

Matching Nava's insight into character and relationships is his skill with language. The books are powerfully and beautifully written, the last five especially so as the poems that inform them and provide their titles (by e. e. cummings, W. H. Auden, Yeats, and Dante) subtly reverberate throughout, adding texture and depth and connecting them to a significant literary and cultural tradition. In this series, Nava grows into an excellent novelist.

Independent Mystery Novels

Not all gay mysteries are parts of series, of course, and there have been several good independent novels published in the last thirty years. Notable among them are three non-Brandstetter mysteries by Joseph Hansen: Known Homosexual (published under the pseudonym James Colton in 1968, reissued as Stranger to Himself in 1977, and reprinted under Hansen's name in 1984 as Pretty Boy Dead), Backtrack (1982), and Steps Going Down (1985).

Three other mysteries well worth reading are Richard Hall's Butterscotch Prince (1975, revised 1983), Stephen Lewis's Cowboy Blues (1985), and Jack Ricardo's The Night G.A.A. Died (1992). Hall's novel, set in New York, has its protagonist coming to terms with his own gayness as he pursues the killer of his lover; it may be considered the first gay liberationist mystery novel.

Ricardo's novel also deals with the early struggle of the liberation movement heralded by Stonewall: Archie Cain, a private detective who was forced out of the New York Police Department when he openly declared his gayness, investigates the murder of an officer of the Gay Activists Alliance in 1971.

Lewis's novel is set in Los Angeles and features an appealing gay private detective, Jake Lieberman, who investigates the disappearance of a gay rodeo performer and would-be country singer. It was obviously intended as the first of a series, which unfortunately has failed to materialize.

Also worth mentioning are the quasi-autobiographical novels of Samuel Steward featuring himself, Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas as detectives: Murder Is Murder Is Murder (1985) and The Caravaggio Shawl (1989).