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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
I hate to say it, but this is my least favorite Henry Rios novel so far. iirc, the others are solely from Henry's POV. This one intersperses chapters of Henry now, investigating Bill's death (while moonlighting as an insurance investigator, a nice nod to <a href="https://crimereads.com/joseph-hanson-dave-brandstetter/">the Dave Brandstetter mysteries</a>) with chapters of Bill "then," from just before his arrival in San Francisco to just before his death.
It's not a bad impulse on Nava's part, wanting to show more of who Bill was before he became a death for Henry to investigate (especially as his life revolves around two major chapters in US gay history that a lot of us no longer remember well or weren't around for - the gaytrification of the Castro and the early, horrific days of the AIDS epidemic). But one of the great pleasures of the rest of the series was riding shotgun with Henry, learning things as he learned them, trying as he did to sort fact from fiction, personal truth from societally-imposed bias. I felt like being handed so much of Bill's life outside of Henry's investigation robbed me of some of the joy of discovery.
It's not a bad impulse on Nava's part, wanting to show more of who Bill was before he became a death for Henry to investigate (especially as his life revolves around two major chapters in US gay history that a lot of us no longer remember well or weren't around for - the gaytrification of the Castro and the early, horrific days of the AIDS epidemic). But one of the great pleasures of the rest of the series was riding shotgun with Henry, learning things as he learned them, trying as he did to sort fact from fiction, personal truth from societally-imposed bias. I felt like being handed so much of Bill's life outside of Henry's investigation robbed me of some of the joy of discovery.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Violence, Medical content, Sexual content, and Death
Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide, Sexual violence, Biphobia, Rape, Alcoholism, and Alcohol
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