Gay

The Protector

Soren Buchanan no longer wishes to work for his father, crime boss James Buchanan, nor does he want to continue his relationship with the dangerous and sexy Jolina Miciano. But Jolina has connections that would make James Buchanan more powerful than he already is. Unwilling to be a pawn in his father's game, Soren decides to stop seeing Jolina even if it means having to suffer through one of his father's vicious beatings. Beaten and bruised for his defiance, Soren flees to the FBI for help.

Mason Ward, former US Army Ranger and security specialist, lives a quiet life on a house boat docked off the island of Guam. Despite his lack of companionship, Mason believes he is living the life he's always wanted. Then a job comes Mason's way, one that will turn his life upside down: hide Soren Buchanan.

Hiding Soren Buchanan should be easy money, but not for Mason. Soren is young, seductive and lacking the type of discipline that doesn't leave bruises. It doesn't help that Soren's physical presence brings up desires Mason would rather not feel about a mobster's son. Now Mason has to keep his mind on his job while being chased by thugs sent to bring Soren Buchanan home...dead or alive.

Sundowner Ubuntu: A Russell Quant Mystery (Russell Quant Mysteries)

Desperate to right old wrongs, a wealthy client hires Russell Quant to locate her son Matthew, lost to her for twenty years. But can money relieve remorse? Tracking Matthew's life from the drug culture of a pleasant prairie city's underbelly to the stunning vistas, vibrant townships, and wild safaris of Africa, Russell finds much more than he was looking for and faces a difficult question: What happens when the prodigal son resists the return?

Anthony Bidulka is an avid traveler, party-giver, and sun worshipper. He lives in Saskatoon. Sundowner Ubuntu is the fifth book in his Russell Quant mystery series.

Mahu Surfer: A Hawaiian Mystery (An Alyson Mystery)

"An eminently likeable hero-the kind of man's man you just want to hug." -Daniel M. Jaffe, author of The Limits of Pleasure

Mahu is a generally negative Hawaiian term for homosexual, and for police detective Kimo Kanapa'aka, being gay doesn't make for an easy life. Especially when you're publicly outed. Now, semi-retired, Kimo must go undercover and stop a brutal killer. Already three surfers have been shot dead, and Kimo must infiltrate the close-knit surfing community, knowing his only way back to active duty is to catch a killer he may know all too well.

Neil S. Plakcy is the author of Mahu and co-edited Paws & Reflect: Exploring the Bond Between Gay Men and Their Dogs. He lives in Florida.

IM

The Internet Is the New Meat Market for Gay Men Now a Killer Is Turning the Meat Market into a Meat Wagon.

One by one, he's killing them. Lurking in the digital underworld of Men4HookUpNow.com, he lures, seduces, charms, reaching out through instant messages to the unwary. He's just another guy.

They invite him over. He's just another trick. Harmless. They're dead wrong.

When the first bloody body surfaces, openly gay Chicago Police Department detective Ed Comparetto is called in to investigate. Sickened by the butchered mess of one of his brothers left on display in a bathtub, he seeks relief outside where the young man who discovered the body waits to tell him the story of how he found his friend. But who is this witness...and did he play a bigger part in the murder than he's letting on?

For Comparetto, this encounter with a witness is the beginning of a nightmare. Because this witness did more than just show up at the scene of the crime; he set the scene. And maybe, he's more than just a killer...maybe he's dead himself.

Comparetto is on a journey to discover the truth, a truth that he needs to discover before he loses his career, his boyfriend, his sanity...his life. Because in this killer's world, IM doesn't stand for instant message...it stands for instant murder.

Gone to Ground

The Messiah (Zane Presents)

In this heart-pounding thriller full of dark passion, an ambitious investigative

reporter faces off with a mysterious serial killer who might just turn out to be

his own lover.

Gabriel Kaine is working furiously to revive his stalled reporting career. Years

ago, he got his first big break by investigating murders committed by a killer

known as the Messiah. But when the Messiah vanished from the public six months

ago, Gabriel's success hit a downward slope.

Now the Messiah has returned, and no one is safe from his evil. Desperate to

bring this man to justice and to reap the professional reward for uncovering the

final truth, Gabriel teams up with Jazz McKinney, the only known survivor of an

encounter with the Messiah who was freed by the killer so he could warn others

of an encounter with the Messiah who was freed by the killer so he could warn

others of the Messiah's impending return. But as Gabriel and Jazz come closer to

discovering the Messiah's identity, Gabriel realizes all the evidence points to

Dr. Garrett Lord - a respected doctor and Gabriel's lover.

The personal stakes have never been higher, and readers will be on the edge of

their seats to see what awful truths are uncovered in this take of misguided

passion, deadly secrets, and thrilling danger.

Murder in the Rue Chartres: A Chanse MacLeod Mystery (An Alyson Mystery)

Murder hits the Big Easy.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Chanse MacLeod returns to a different, shattered New Orleans in an attempt to rebuild his own life and face his own future. When he discovers that his last client before the storm was murdered the very night she hired him to find her long-missing father, he is drawn into a web of intrigue and evil that surrounds the Verlaine family.

Greg Herren is the author of six mysteries set in the city of New Orleans, including Murder in the Rue Dauphine and Murder in the Rue St. Ann, and he co-edited Love, Bourbon Street.

The Fisher Boy

Spiraling from the tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown has long been a place of freedom, escape, diversity, and risk. A gay resort, an art colony, and a working fishing port, it is at once gritty and hedonistic, beautiful and complex.
Boston comic Mark Winslow arrives with his troupe of improv actors ready to break into the Provincetown club circuit. But the town and the region—seared by drought and caught in the culture war—are anything but peaceful this summer. Does the tall ship in the harbor bear an unusually large number of Scandinavian tourists? If not, who are the blond and ragged people insisting they are associated with it?
Then a public fight makes Mark the prime suspect in the grisly butchering of a Boston blueblood. Mark believes his choice is simple: find the killer or be charged with the crime.
Amid the clam shacks and craft shops, art galleries and nude beaches, undercurrents are pulling at the surface of normality, like riptides beneath seemingly calm water. Could the disappearance of a famous painter 80 years in the past—and the story of his masterpiece, The Fisher Boy—somehow lie at the center of the whirlpool of evil threatening to extinguish Mark’s life? The Fisher Boy is Stephen Anable’s debut novel.

Death Trick: A Murder Mystery (Donald Strachey Mysteries)

It's 1979, the height of the post-Stonewall era of gay sexual liberation, and a young man has been brutally murdered. The gay son of a wealthy family has disappeared. Now it's up to private dick Don Strachey to get to the bottom of this mess--even if he has to cruise every gay bar in the city to do it!

Don Strachey isn't exactly the most sought-after private eye in Albany, New York. In fact, this gay P.I. has gotten to the point of having to write checks to pay his tab at the cheapest lunch counter in town. And he isn't sure that the latest one, for the grand total of two dollars and ninety-three cents, is going to clear. Then the phone rings. Billy Blount, the gay heir to one of Saratoga Springs' upper-crust families, has disappeared, and his parents want him back. On top of that, Billy, a young and outspoken gay activist, is wanted for the grizzly murder of the man he slept with on his last night in Albany--a man he'd never met before that night!

Set in the glorious, promiscuous pre-HIV late 1970s, Death Trick is a fast-paced excursion through the seamy underside of gay Albany. From gay discos where the hard-pumping music never stops, to the city's infamous baths, to the dark alley behind the local precinct house, this hard-bitten private dick searches for answers to the questions that plague Billy's parents and the police.

With his faithful companion (and unfaithful lover) Timmy plus a cast of characters that includes drag queens, ex-jock gay bar owners, homophobic cops, male hustlers, and wealthy suburbanites, Strachey begins a chase that leads him to seedy gay bars, posh suburban homes, and pricey mental institutions where they use electric shock to destroy "sick" gay tendencies.

Armistead Maupin describes Death Trick as "sassy and sexy" and calls Don Strachey, "a private dick who really earns his title." The New York Native calls the novel, "more than just a first-rate murder mystery." The Advocate said, "a great lazy-day read." And Newsday called the book, "well written and compelling."

Don't you owe it to yourself to take this trick home tonight?

Looking For It

Mike Monaghan is the bartender at the Engine Room, a meeting place for the small but thriving community of gay men in Cold Falls, New York. As Mike pours beer, wipes glasses and hears everything, he's also witness to the men who come here looking for what they need—sex, direction, friendship, spiritual fulfillment, and love. People like: Stephen Darby—As an accountant, he knows many secrets. But Stephen has his own secret, one he's never been able to share with anyone close to him. Being the perfect son costs him dearly, and now it may take from him the one man he longs for.

Pete Thayer—Playing it straight, Pete takes out his frustrations on transmissions and engines during the day, then spends his nights trying to quench his needs through anonymous sex. But once the thrill of the forbidden begins to fade, what will he be left with?

John and Russell—The golden couple in town has the ideal relationship everyone wants. But behind the scenes, their storybook marriage is on the verge of facing some explosive trials that will shake both men completely.

Father Thomas Dunn—More and more the gentle priest is feeling a need to express the secret desires that conflict with his devotion to the church, sending his faith into a tailspin and making him question what he really wants from life.

Simon Bird—He's a fixture in town, an old queen everyone finds amusing and entertaining. Still mourning the loss of his longtime lover, Simon yearns to find love and a place in a culture that worships youth and beauty.

As Mike hands these men their drinks, he marvels at their determination, strength and foolishness. But most of all, he begins to question his own dissatisfaction, pondering what's missing from his own life, and what risks he may have to take to find fulfillment. Looking For It is an extraordinarily human tale of community, friendship, and the search for happiness. With unflinching honesty, keen insight, and his trademark humor, Michael Thomas Ford weaves together the unforgettable stories of these seven men, chronicling their dreams, hurts, heartbreaks, joys, and hopes, while taking readers on an emotional journey to find what it is we're all looking for.