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Our murder mystery opens in 1925 at the English country manor of Sir James and Lady Caroline Eagle. Yes, someone stumbles upon a dead body! It happens when the guests all indulge in some kids' stuff silliness: playing a game of Sardines (also known in the United States as Hide-and-Go-Seek). Why would adults fritter away the summer hours playing a kid's game? Why do you think? Perhaps to get the witnesses out from underfoot so as to commit the murder undisturbed. Or perhaps just for the first reason that probably popped to your mind: the chance to squeeze into a tight hiding place with the object of your infatuation. That's what 22 year-old Mitch wants. Unlike most conflicted heroes, our first-person narrator couldn't be happier. An American studying medicine at Cambridge, he lusts after his chum "Boy" Morgan. Now the two guys are jammed into a cupboard together as Sir James's daughter Belinda searches for everyone. Never mind that Morgan and Belinda are engaged to be married. What better opportunity to introduce Morgan – under the initial, this-isn't-really-gay pretense of just horsing around – to the joys of close contact and "accidental" fondling? Morgan, more endowed with beauty than brains, raises no objections to these explorations. It's about to get even better for Mitch, an avid fan of detective novels. Belinda stumbles upon a dead body, and her screams bring everyone in the house running! Sir James summons the police! If he works fast, Mitch might even get to examine a crime-scene! As he admits, he has two obsessions in life – cock and crime – and now he gets to indulge in both. But what if the two come into conflict? Well, he's only 22 years old; which one do you think will win out? Sure enough, before Mitch can find any clues, Sir James's fey brother Leonard lures him outside to a secluded pond and seduces him. When Mitch returns, exhausted and happy, the police bar him from the crime scene. Chastising himself later, Mitch wonders what Sherlock Holmes would have had to say about his deplorable lack of will-power? He starts digging for gossip to make up for lost time. The murder victim turns out to be a guest, Reg Walworth, found strangled to death in Sir James's study. The village police arrest one of the servants, Charlie Meeks. But Mitch has a feeling that the corrupt local constabulary will do anything Sir James specifies, and that someone has framed poor Meeks. Meeks, who has an exceedingly cute backside, just couldn't possibly be a murderer! Plus there are way too many unanswered questions: chief among them, why did Sir James's son Rex suddenly take off to London? Mitch gets to work, seducing and interviewing as many of the servants and cops and witnesses and bystanders as he can – with Morgan serving as an increasingly enthusiastic Watson to his Holmes. The sinuous Leonard Eagle, arguably the most perverted member of the household, refers to the manor as Sodom-by-the-Sea. He's not joking. The novel unfolds in what feels like an alternate-gay-universe in which every male character that happens along initiates an explicit and varied sexual encounter: servants below the stairs, family above the stairs, and even the occasional journalist who ventures to the front door looking for breaking news! The witty and fast-paced writing keeps everything moving along like an Oscar Wilde comedy, turned X-rated. The writing really is outstanding, and the humor threatens to make you burst out laughing on every other page (partly at Mitch's cheeky observations, and partly at the ludicrousness of it all). I expected a comedy when I first saw the title – and how did the author ever get away with such a title, especially in conjunction with the not-so-subtle but handsome nude man on the cover? The Back Passage doesn't disappoint. For those who wonder (and I was one here at Obsidianbookshelf.com), the title actually does refer to an architectural feature crucial in solving the mystery. And, as a mystery, the novel holds up to genre specifications. It also has a surprisingly romantic ending. I hope we'll see Mitch return soon in further mysteries: comedy and sex are always good to find! |
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