{"id":11987,"date":"2019-07-07T12:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-07T16:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=11987"},"modified":"2022-08-28T18:18:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T22:18:48","slug":"footsteps-in-the-dark-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11987","title":{"rendered":"Footsteps in the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Footsteps in the Dark<\/a><\/em> (2019) L.B. Gregg, Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Dal MacLean, Z.A. Maxfield, Meg Perry, C.S. Poe and S.C. Wynne<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Entr\u00e9e to Murder by Nicole Kimberling
\nTwelve Seconds by Meg Perry
\nReality Bites by S.C. Wynne
\nBlind Man\u2019s Buff by L.B. Gregg
\nA Country for Old Men by Dal Maclean
\nPepper the Crime Lab by Z.A. Maxfield
\nLights. Camera. Murder. by C.S. Poe
\nStranger in the House by Josh Lanyon<\/p>\n

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

Entr\u00e9e to Murder by Nicole Kimberling <\/p>\n

After a steady diet of big city trouble, Chef Drew Allison moved to the island town of Orca\u2019s 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 Caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I vaguely recollected that Lionel\u2019s grandmother had refused to teach him to cook because \u201chis wife would take care of that for him,\u201d while his busy single mother possessed neither the time nor the inclination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also love this story for the variety of characters, including two older women who are also main characters, and a delight.<\/p>\n

All but one looked up as I entered. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Andrew,\u201d Evelyn announced, waving her hand back as though I were some stray dog that had followed her home. \u201cHe\u2019s the chef at the murder restaurant.\u201d <\/p>\n

To my surprise, only one of the old ladies seemed scandalized, and she appeared to be mainly irritated at Evelyn. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure he doesn\u2019t want to be introduced like that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

(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\u2019d trained under. <\/p>\n

When she noticed me watching, she changed her tone to chirpy English. \u201cOkay, I love you, bye, bye!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I really enjoyed this story.<\/p>\n

Twelve Seconds by Meg Perry<\/p>\n

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\u2026if it doesn\u2019t kill them first.<\/p>\n

This story alternates POV between Justin and Greg.<\/p>\n

As a space reporter for the Hughes-Simmons news syndicate, parent of the Orlando Tribune<\/em> 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<\/em>, Justin needed to hear about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Greg clapped Fleshman on the shoulder. \u201cThis sort of decision, Airman, is why God invented colonels. And here comes mine now.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ward Vernon strode up to them, scowling. \u201cWhere the hell is Santos?\u201d <\/p>\n

Greg said, \u201cThrowing up, sir.\u201d He pointed to the gator. <\/p>\n

Vernon\u2019s jaw dropped. \u201cJeeezus Hallelujah Christ!\u201d <\/p>\n

Airman Fleshman was biting his lip to keep from laughing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mindy arrived a few minutes later and surveyed the situation, shaking her head. \u201cDamn.\u201d <\/p>\n

Vernon said, \u201cIndeed. What kind of gun do we need to kill this gator, Agent Leonard?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOur service weapons would work, sir. But it\u2019s illegal to kill a gator without a permit.\u201d <\/p>\n

Vernon scowled. \u201cWe\u2019re the United States Air Force, dammit. We\u2019ll shoot whatever we like.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think what I liked about those bits were that they felt precisely like what would happen in that situation.<\/p>\n

I also loved that Justin was a tremendous, adorable geek.<\/p>\n

This was another great story.<\/p>\n

Reality Bites by S.C. Wynne<\/p>\n

Detective Cabot Decker is called to the set of hot-shot TV producer Jax Thornburn\u2019s reality-TV show after a contestant is mauled to death by a tiger. Is someone trying to ax Jax\u2019s career\u2014or Jax himself?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The characters were fine. Not my favorites of this series, but that was mostly comparing it to other stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still not sure about this.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll make sure you have fun.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to have fun.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThen I\u2019ll make sure you have a horrible evening.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI can do that all by myself.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll pick you up at eight.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mystery was the strong point of this story, and I very much liked it.<\/p>\n

Blind Man\u2019s Buff by L.B. Gregg<\/p>\n

A game of Capture the Flag turns deadly inside an abandoned shopping mall when Tommy and Jonah stumble into a homicidal maniac\u2019s hunting grounds.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.) <\/p>\n

I\u2019d spent most of the last decade working to become more like Thor because the weak, geek, queer motif hadn\u2019t paid off for me, personally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But he’s also a grown-up.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the adult learning curve in life\u2014 or mine, anyway. Adulting is about facing hard tasks, difficult decisions, and unpleasant realities. Stepping up to the plate even when you don\u2019t 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There were a couple of issues with the mystery here, but mostly I really liked it.<\/p>\n

A Country for Old Men by Dal Maclean<\/p>\n

Inspector Calum Macleod has returned to the Western Isles of Scotland to bury a part of himself he can\u2019t accept. But the island has old secrets of its own. When a murderer strikes, Calum finds his past can\u2019t be so easily escaped.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But it still had plenty of positives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what\u2019s disappointing?\u201d Adam asked. \u201cI do Muay Thai\u2014 Thai kickboxing\u2014 every week. It\u2019s supposed to be good against knives. But\u2026 it turns out you don\u2019t necessarily understand someone\u2019s going to attack you until the knife\u2019s already at your throat.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another good mystery.<\/p>\n

Pepper the Crime Lab by Z.A. Maxfield<\/p>\n

When Lonnie Boudreaux\u2019s neighbor is murdered, he must foster the man\u2019s dog, befriend a mysterious former cop, and stop the killer\u2014or else!<\/p>\n

I especially liked the main characters in this story. Lonnie is a workaholic whose health has forced him to reevaluate his life. <\/p>\n

The mystery was also very well done, and I would actually love spending more time with these characters.<\/p>\n

Lights. Camera. Murder. by C.S. Poe<\/p>\n

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\u2013a job complicated by Rory\u2019s unexpected attraction to handsome, talented, and out-and-proud actor Marion Roosevelt.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

I also very much like the mystery, although the romance between the two characters didn’t do much for me.<\/p>\n

Stranger in the House by Josh Lanyon<\/p>\n

Miles Tuesday\u2019s memories of Montreal are happy ones, but now that he has inherited the house at 9 Braeside, everything feels different. Was Madame Martel\u2019s fatal fall really an accident?<\/p>\n

This is another story where I liked the mystery, but felt like the romance was lacking.<\/p>\n

In the old days, confirmed bachelor was code for gay, but Miles was pretty sure in Oliver\u2019s case it meant middle-aged-heterosexual-used-to-having-his-own-way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Miles is a really really nice guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an enterprise architect for BEC Financial.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cEnterprise architect. Is that something to do with IT?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s everything to do with IT,\u201d Oliver said cheerfully. It sounded really dull, but Oliver seemed happy about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Fabulous.<\/p>\n

Publisher: JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
\nRating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Entr\u00e9e to Murder by Nicole Kimberling Twelve Seconds by Meg Perry Reality Bites by S.C. Wynne Blind Man\u2019s Buff by L.B. Gregg A Country for Old Men by Dal Maclean Pepper the Crime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,18,292,8,148,26,56],"tags":[50,180,177,544,351],"class_list":["post-11987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-10","category-anthology","category-ebook","category-mystery","category-queer","category-romance","category-sexual-content","tag-boinking","tag-c-s-poe","tag-josh-lanyon","tag-mm","tag-nicole-kimberling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-37l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":22074,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/22074","url_meta":{"origin":11987,"position":0},"title":"Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries","author":"Michelle","date":"June 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries (2023) Nicole Kimberling After rereading Grilled Cheese and Goblins I was wishing I had more mysteries by Nicole Kimberling when LO! I see she has a new mystery coming out! I can preorder it! DONE! As with her other books,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Mystery-on-the-Menu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Mystery-on-the-Menu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Mystery-on-the-Menu.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17747,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/17747","url_meta":{"origin":11987,"position":1},"title":"The Bellingham Mystery Series Volume 1","author":"Michelle","date":"September 17, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Bellingham Mystery Series Volume 1 (2015) Nicole Kimberling Primal Red Evergreen Black Cat Ink Like Grilled Cheese and Goblins, the story is fun and enjoyable. In addition to writing articles, Peter was in charge of circulation, which meant that every Thursday morning he drove bundles of the free weekly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Bellingham Mystery Series Volume 1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/The-Bellingham-Mystery-Series-Volume-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25618,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25618","url_meta":{"origin":11987,"position":2},"title":"Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries","author":"Michelle","date":"January 12, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries (2023) Nicole Kimberling \u201cThis is Andrew,\u201d Evelyn announced, waving her hand back as though I were some stray dog that had followed her home. \u201cHe\u2019s the chef at the murder restaurant.\u201d I pivoted and strode briskly into the walk-in refrigerator\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Mystery-on-the-Menu-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21535,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21535","url_meta":{"origin":11987,"position":3},"title":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector","author":"Michelle","date":"February 24, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector (2018) Nicole Kimberling Keith had investigated orgy sites where there had been twenty or more witnesses all standing and watching some victim being dismembered just because a cameraman was filming it. The presence of a camera implied fiction and a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Grilled-Cheese-and-Goblins.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24234,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24234","url_meta":{"origin":11987,"position":4},"title":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector","author":"Michelle","date":"February 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector (2018) Nicole Kimberling Lulu\u2019s Flapjack Shack inhabited a space that had certainly been continuously used as a hospitality venue since linoleum had been invented. \u201cMass media doesn\u2019t cover actual vampire deaths,\u201d Keith remarked before he realized how callous his statement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Grilled-Cheese-and-Goblins.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17745,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/17745","url_meta":{"origin":11987,"position":5},"title":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector","author":"Michelle","date":"September 17, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector (2018) Nicole Kimberling This is such a fun book. I mean, supernatural food inspector! Keith could have epitomized the word \u201caverage.\u201d Not good-looking or bad looking. Brown hair and eyes. Nothing beyond that to report. 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