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The subtitle of this mystery could easily be "The Case That Won't Go Away." Noel Franklin and Kyra Rachel, sole owners and operators of Islands Investigations International, are hired by three different sets of clients, in sequence, each wishing them to solve one key aspect of the mystery. The results are not only a fun read but often funny in both senses of the word — strange and comical. Part one of the case begins with a Greek American mother, a member of the Orthodox Church, bending to give her son, Alessandro Vasiliadis, a farewell kiss in his coffin: "She breathed harshly and stood straight, staring down. 'That's' - a hoarse whisper, 'that's not Sandro!'" So, at the recommendation of a family friend, the mother hires Kyra and Noel to find her son: "Since it's not Sandro who's dead, he must be alive. [...] And what mother's son is in the casket?" There is also the curious matter that the corpse died of a drug overdose, though Sandro was never known to be into drugs, but that's not her concern since it is not her son. The reader soon gets the explanation for the mix-up: though the transformation was not yet complete, the corpse is that of Alessandra (Sandra) Vasiliadis. The hormone treatment has altered his/her face enough to fool her mother. More accepting of the truth than Sandra's uncle or cousin, Mrs. Vasiliadis arranges for the funeral to proceed. For various reasons the local sheriff is willing, however, to let bureaucratic red tape momentarily prevent the transfer of the body from the morgue to the family. And so a lesbian couple with whom Sandra formed a bond, one of whom works in the sheriff's office, uses the opportunity to hire Noel and Kyra to tackle part two of the mystery: the unexplained drug overdose. A number of other aspects of the death do not quite add up either: the frumpy male clothing Sandra was wearing at the time, the absence of mud from her shoes despite rainy weather, the distance she drove while supposedly od-ing. To the sheriff's displeasure, Noel and Kyra return to the case to ask whether the death is in fact murder. Once their findings lead the sheriff to reopen his investigation, a successfully transgendered person hires Noel and Kyra to elucidate yet a third aspect of the death: what the role of the gender reassignment clinic was, if any. Some of the things Sandra let slip do not quite add up the way they should. And indeed the omniscient narrator has already caused the reader to wonder just what went on during the reassignment procedure. One member of the clinic has had an earlier brush with authorities. And all four of them seem unduly nervous about what is slowly emerging about the corpse. Noel and Kyra are not the only civilian team, so to speak, conducting an investigation of the case. Mrs. Vasiliadis's brother-in-law Andrei Vasiliadis and her comical clown of a nephew Vasily Constantinides, with tunnel vision, are determined to prevent the existence of Sandra ever becoming known to the rest of the family. Vasily careens around the island in almost slapstick fashion to create additional confusion for Noel and Kyra, the sheriff's office, the reassignment clinic, and even the Vasiliadis family. The mystery, with its rather large and quite varied cast of characters, sweeps the reader along. But its plot also provides an educational experience. In their acknowledgments the authors thank various people for their help on "the science produced by the doctors of the [reassignment] Clinic," Greek Orthodoxy,"queer identity," and "the social and cultural side of Whidbey Island," a real place with fictional characters forming the northern boundary of Puget Sound. As a result of Noel's discomfort and Kyra's misconceptions, the reader gains insight into the psychology of the transgendered individual. The novel is the second in the Islands Investigations International Mystery series. The first, NEVER SLEEP WITH A SUSPECT ON GABRIOLA ISLAND (2009), explains how the agency came into existence. Noel and Kyra were once Canadian neighbors and have remained friends. Since Noel was an investigative reporter for a Vancouver newspaper and Kyra is working gruelling hours as an insurance claims investigator, creating an agency seems a natural step after they jointly solve their first case. Noel, 43 (in this novel; he is 44 in the earlier one), is still grieving for the loss of his lover to leukemia, discovered too late and then only because he was unfaithful to Noel at a conference in San Francisco and voluntarily had himself tested. The thrice-married Kyra, 36, is rethinking her relationships with men even as she begins dating a widower. The partners' personal development makes up part of both novels. One appealing aspect of their relationship is the very realistic tensions that occasionally erupt between them: sometimes from one meddling in the affairs of the other; sometimes over disagreements about how to handle the case. SUSPECT is a more prosaic whodunit involving drug dealing and art forgeries. But it too has an unorthodox plot structure: after their initial success with their first client, a second group hires them to investigate that client. And it takes some unusual twists, creating situations that are much tenser than those in CORPSE. A third novel, NEVER HUG A MUGGER ON QUADRA ISLAND, is promised for spring 2011. § Drewey Wayne Gunn, Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, is author of THE GAY MALE SLEUTH IN PRINT AND FILM (2005) and editor of THE GOLDEN AGE OF GAY FICTION (2009), a collection of essays, including his own "Down These Queer Streets a Man Must Go," and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Benjamin Franklin Award.
Reviewed by Drewey Wayne Gunn, November 2010
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