Virginia Kelly is black. This is significant because it makes her the first African-American sleuth in lesbian fiction. Likewise, Nikki Baker is the first African-American author of lesbian mysteries. This makes In the Game an important literary event. At a mere 171 pages, this is one of Naiad’s shortest books, and it is alsoRead More
Megan Casey reviews When the Dancing Stops by Therese Szymanski
This is advertised as a different kind of lesbian mystery, and it is. Brett Higgins is a young woman from the wrong side of the river in Detroit, who manages to work her way up to becoming the manager of a sleazy porn operation that has sidelines in drugs, lap dancing, and intimidation. She isRead More
Megan Casey reviews The Dead by Ingrid Black
In a 2013 interview, Anne Laughlin lists Ingrid Black as one of her favorite lesbian mystery writers. It isn’t clear from the interview whether she was aware that “Ingrid Black” is actually two writers—Ellis O’Hanlon and her husband Ian McConnel. Nor is it mentioned whether she was aware that O’Hanlon, a journalist, has written flippantRead More
Megan Casey reviews Torrid Zone by ReBecca Béguin
In the early days of modern feminism, when women were wimmin (or womyn), girls were grrrls, and men were the enemy, Ida Muret joined seven other communal lesbians on a collective farm in central Vermont. They called their group Blue Corn. Their goals were many, but boiled down to living self-sufficiently off the land andRead More
Megan Casey reviews The Wombat Strategy by Claire McNab
Kylie Kendall, newly arrived in L.A. from a small-town in Australia, is a fresh catch compared to cold-fish, Sydney-based Carol Ashton, the protagonist of McNab’s first lesbian mystery series. To expend the metaphor, The Wombat Strategy is a pretty good catch. Kylie has grown up in Australia, working in her mother’s pub in Wollegudgerie. ButRead More
Megan Casey Reviews 1222 by Anne Holt
The first interesting thing I want to mention is that Anne Holt’s series is listed as The Hanne Wilhelmsen Novels. Not The Hanne Wilhelmsen Mysteries or The Hanne Wilhelmsen Adventures. The publisher—a traditional mainstream press—wants us to view these books as literary. In other words, something above the more lightly taken mystery genre, and certainlyRead More
Megan Casey Reviews Whacked by Josie Gordon
Lonnie Squires has an unusual profession for a lesbian mystery protagonist; she is an Episcopal priest. As far as I know, Joan Albarella’s Nikki Barnes is the only other woman of the cloth in lesbian mystery fiction. In fact, it is unusual to find religious references at all in the genre other than casual referencesRead More
Megan Casey reviews Wanted by T.I. Alvarado
Bird Blacker—who has one of the oddest names in lesbian mystery fiction—is an ex-police officer now working as a bounty hunter, probably the first bounty hunter in the genre. Comparisons beg to be made between Bird and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, and there are a few. Both women are tenacious and funny, both haveRead More
Megan Casey reviews Death Wore a Diadem by Iona McGregor
Christabel MacKenzie is a 17-year-old student attending the Scottish Institute for the Education of the Daughters of Gentlefolk in Edinburgh. Like most of the students there, Christabel’s family is well to do. In fact, her aunt is a friend of the Empress Eugenie of France. It is when the Empress decides to visit Edinburgh—andRead More
Megan Casey reviews Tell Me What You Like by Kate Allen
From a few things I had read about her books, I expected Kate Allen to write about “big tough butches in leather jackets they never took off.” In fact, that’s exactly what Officer Allison Kaine thought when she found herself in a bar full of leather-clad lesbians. What she discovers (and what I discovered)Read More