Footsteps in the Dark

Footsteps in the Dark (2019) L.B. Gregg, Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Dal MacLean, Z.A. Maxfield, Meg Perry, C.S. Poe and S.C. Wynne

Entrée to Murder by Nicole Kimberling
Twelve Seconds by Meg Perry
Reality Bites by S.C. Wynne
Blind Man’s Buff by L.B. Gregg
A Country for Old Men by Dal Maclean
Pepper the Crime Lab by Z.A. Maxfield
Lights. Camera. Murder. by C.S. Poe
Stranger in the House by Josh Lanyon

This is an anthology of mysteries with M/M romance. Most, but not all, of the stories have boinking.

Entrée to Murder by Nicole Kimberling

After a steady diet of big city trouble, Chef Drew Allison moved to the island town of Orca’s Slough to get a taste of life in the slow lane. But hometown hospitality goes stale when he finds a dead body in the basement of his own Eelgrass Café.

I really like Drew. He wants to make his restaurant work, and wants to get his partner out of trouble, but since part of the trouble is their bartender, he’s kinda of stuck. He also a genuinely good person who wants to take care of his employees, especially Lionel, his young assistant.

I vaguely recollected that Lionel’s grandmother had refused to teach him to cook because “his wife would take care of that for him,” while his busy single mother possessed neither the time nor the inclination.

I also love this story for the variety of characters, including two older women who are also main characters, and a delight.

All but one looked up as I entered.

“This is Andrew,” Evelyn announced, waving her hand back as though I were some stray dog that had followed her home. “He’s the chef at the murder restaurant.”

To my surprise, only one of the old ladies seemed scandalized, and she appeared to be mainly irritated at Evelyn.

“I’m sure he doesn’t want to be introduced like that.”

The mystery is good, but what makes the story are the interactions between the characters, like Drew seeing Lionel getting dropped off at work.

(S)he told him off in Korean. I stood gawking, impressed by the volume she managed to produce from her tiny body. She put to shame a couple of chefs I’d trained under.

When she noticed me watching, she changed her tone to chirpy English. “Okay, I love you, bye, bye!”

I really enjoyed this story.

Twelve Seconds by Meg Perry

A mysterious phone call, a missing executive, and an exploding rocket throw space reporter Justin Harris and Air Force Special Agent Greg Marcotte into an investigation that will change their lives…if it doesn’t kill them first.

This story alternates POV between Justin and Greg.

As a space reporter for the Hughes-Simmons news syndicate, parent of the Orlando Tribune and other major newspapers around the US, Justin Harris was expected to respond to space news regardless of the hour. If an air leak developed in the International Space Station, if a rocket failed on a launch pad in French Guiana or Kazakhstan, if Elon Musk tweeted anything, Justin needed to hear about it.

This is the story that I read bits out loud to Michael. And it wasn’t even the dialog, but a bit with an alligator and an unexpected dead body.

Greg clapped Fleshman on the shoulder. “This sort of decision, Airman, is why God invented colonels. And here comes mine now.”

Ward Vernon strode up to them, scowling. “Where the hell is Santos?”

Greg said, “Throwing up, sir.” He pointed to the gator.

Vernon’s jaw dropped. “Jeeezus Hallelujah Christ!”

Airman Fleshman was biting his lip to keep from laughing.

Mindy arrived a few minutes later and surveyed the situation, shaking her head. “Damn.”

Vernon said, “Indeed. What kind of gun do we need to kill this gator, Agent Leonard?”

“Our service weapons would work, sir. But it’s illegal to kill a gator without a permit.”

Vernon scowled. “We’re the United States Air Force, dammit. We’ll shoot whatever we like.

I think what I liked about those bits were that they felt precisely like what would happen in that situation.

I also loved that Justin was a tremendous, adorable geek.

This was another great story.

Reality Bites by S.C. Wynne

Detective Cabot Decker is called to the set of hot-shot TV producer Jax Thornburn’s reality-TV show after a contestant is mauled to death by a tiger. Is someone trying to ax Jax’s career—or Jax himself?

This was a Hollywood story, so the setting was a little less appealing to me, but the main character was a police detective, so that was a definite plus.

I kinda wanna make Michael read this story, since a major plot point is an electronic lock, and he knows lots and lots about this. But from what I’ve listened to over the years, they got things correct.

The characters were fine. Not my favorites of this series, but that was mostly comparing it to other stories.

“I’m still not sure about this.”

“I’ll make sure you have fun.”

“I don’t want to have fun.”

“Then I’ll make sure you have a horrible evening.”

“I can do that all by myself.”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

The mystery was the strong point of this story, and I very much liked it.

Blind Man’s Buff by L.B. Gregg

A game of Capture the Flag turns deadly inside an abandoned shopping mall when Tommy and Jonah stumble into a homicidal maniac’s hunting grounds.

This was a very interesting story. If it was a movie, I totally wouldn’t watch it, because things chasing and attacking in the dark are so very much not my thing, but the premise and the characters were lovely. Tommy and Jonah are high school teachers, and also tremendous geeks, who like physical RPGs, like the game of capture the flag they are playing in an old mall.

What makes Tommy so likable and adorable is that he is still a dork, even if he’s also the tank of the group and has spent years honing his body and doing things like parkour. (Did I mention the pakour? As a life-long klutz, I adore parkour.)

I’d spent most of the last decade working to become more like Thor because the weak, geek, queer motif hadn’t paid off for me, personally.

But he’s also a grown-up.

Here’s the adult learning curve in life— or mine, anyway. Adulting is about facing hard tasks, difficult decisions, and unpleasant realities. Stepping up to the plate even when you don’t want to, because you have to. But sometimes adult life requires you to stand down, listen to others, and find the grace to compromise respectfully.

There were a couple of issues with the mystery here, but mostly I really liked it.

A Country for Old Men by Dal Maclean

Inspector Calum Macleod has returned to the Western Isles of Scotland to bury a part of himself he can’t accept. But the island has old secrets of its own. When a murderer strikes, Calum finds his past can’t be so easily escaped.

This was possibly my least favorite story in the anthology, but that’s mostly because I don’t like second-chances romances where they main characters are antagonistic towards each other at the start.

But it still had plenty of positives.

“You know what’s disappointing?” Adam asked. “I do Muay Thai— Thai kickboxing— every week. It’s supposed to be good against knives. But… it turns out you don’t necessarily understand someone’s going to attack you until the knife’s already at your throat.”

Another good mystery.

Pepper the Crime Lab by Z.A. Maxfield

When Lonnie Boudreaux’s neighbor is murdered, he must foster the man’s dog, befriend a mysterious former cop, and stop the killer—or else!

I especially liked the main characters in this story. Lonnie is a workaholic whose health has forced him to reevaluate his life.

The mystery was also very well done, and I would actually love spending more time with these characters.

Lights. Camera. Murder. by C.S. Poe

When a hotshot television producer hires him to recover a stolen script, NY PI Rory Byrne must go undercover on the set of the ground-breaking historical drama The Bowery–a job complicated by Rory’s unexpected attraction to handsome, talented, and out-and-proud actor Marion Roosevelt.

Another TV-set mystery, this one set in New York. The main character is a private investigatory who is set to the set of a TV show to figure out which of 100 possible people are a thief.

One of the things I liked best about this story was the premise of the TV series: an historical series with a M/M romance. It allowed almost the entire cast to be LGBTQ.

I also very much like the mystery, although the romance between the two characters didn’t do much for me.

Stranger in the House by Josh Lanyon

Miles Tuesday’s memories of Montreal are happy ones, but now that he has inherited the house at 9 Braeside, everything feels different. Was Madame Martel’s fatal fall really an accident?

This is another story where I liked the mystery, but felt like the romance was lacking.

In the old days, confirmed bachelor was code for gay, but Miles was pretty sure in Oliver’s case it meant middle-aged-heterosexual-used-to-having-his-own-way.

Miles is a really really nice guy.

“I’m an enterprise architect for BEC Financial.”

“Enterprise architect. Is that something to do with IT?”

“It’s everything to do with IT,” Oliver said cheerfully. It sounded really dull, but Oliver seemed happy about it.

Since the boinking part of these stories are my least favorite bits, that lack didn’t bother me that much, it just made the boinking more annoying that normal.

What impressed me most about this book was that these were novellas and and short novels, and all were excellent. That rarely happens in an anthology, but here even if one part of the story felt weak to me, the strengths of the other parts lifted it up.

Fabulous.

Publisher: JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
Rating: 9/10

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