Genre: Psychological
Thriller/Mystery/LGBTQ
Description:
“When the bodies of three male sex workers show up on the banks of the
Mississippi River, the St. Louis LGBTQIA community grows restless while searching
for a missing bartender. The police have been slow to respond, and a local
reporter suspects a serial killer might be stalking the city’s streets.
Unable to resist putting herself in front of a story as it unfolds,
Colette Birzhan races to the Midwest to report on the case. She’s intelligent,
provocative, and a proud trans woman. She’s also an award-winning investigative
journalist for the New York City Tribune.
Having escaped the clutches of a small town years ago to become her
true self, Colette yearns to tell the stories of minorities and
under-represented people just like her. From seedy strip joints to private
upscale men’s clubs, there’s no part of the city where Colette won’t go while
tracking the killer.
Colette relies on the unheard, and often ignored, voices of the city
to lead her one step closer to solving the case. When she teams up with a
rookie hustler, the trail leads them to a quiet suburb outside of St. Louis
called Scenic Hills.
Swimming pools, back yard barbecues, children riding bikes along
neighborhood streets, Scenic Hills is a place where people go to escape the
fast and dangerous pace of city life.
And it’s where a killer could be hiding.”
Author:
“Shannon Yarbrough knew he wanted to be a writer ever since his grade
school passed out free black-and-white journals each year and made classrooms
devote one hour a day to creative writing. His school even hosted a Young
Author’s Day Festival. To attend, each student had to write and publish their
very own book. Shannon wrote and created a pop-up book of poetry out of
cardboard and contact paper. He’s been writing short stories and novels ever
since.
Born in the South, Shannon fell in love with Southern literature in
college and often pays homage to his Southern roots in his story settings and
in the characters he creates. From an obsessive-compulsive coffee barista
searching for love in a romantic comedy to a Christmas dinner gone awry in a family
psychodrama, Shannon constantly challenges his storytelling ability by rarely
sticking to one genre. He even wrote a mash-up of the life of poet Emily
Dickinson with the story of Frankenstein.
Shannon has called St. Louis, Missouri home for the last two decades,
where he lives with his partner of eighteen years, their two dogs, and two
cats. Besides writing, Shannon enjoys gardening, cooking, and reading.”
For more, visit Shannon’s website.
Appraisal:
Regular readers of my reviews know that one thing I like in fiction is
when a story figuratively puts me in someone else’s shoes, helping me better
understand and hopefully sympathize with the plight of those different than me.
Here we’ve got a bunch of characters who are members of the LGBTQIA community.
In some instances, they’re homeless or close to being so and making ends meet
as sex workers. (Warning: If you’re homophobic, this book will probably trigger
you repeatedly.) These characters make this story different from my typical
read, but at its heart this book is a thriller. Wondering whether Collette, the
police, or someone else was going to be able to figure out who the serial
killer killing male sex workers in St Louis was and if they would be able to
stop the killings kept me engaged to the end.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
Some adult language and mild adult content. As mentioned in the
review, if you’re homophobic, this might not be for you either.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words
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