The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography Review
For mystery buffs or fans of gay literature, The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film by Drewey Wayne Gunn is a must-have. The book is pretty evenly divided between a fascinating look at the gay male sleuth throughout history and a comprehensive bibliography of books featuring gay male sleuths.
It's obvious that Gunn has done his homework here, and equally obvious that this is a genre he loves. While academic in nature, the book is easy to read and understand, and actually quite enjoyable. It certainly fills a void. While there have been a few other studies and bibliographies on LGBT mystery and detectives novels, they missed many titles and practically ignored books featuring gay males. There were virtually no books indexing gay male sleuths in film.
There is much to learn in these pages, even for a writer of a gay male sleuth! For instance, did you know that the first recognizably gay detective did not appear until 1953 in an English novel The Heart in Exile by Rodney Garland? However, it was not marketed as a gay mystery and so it is often overlooked. The first actual gay sleuth presented as such appeared in 1961 in a pulp novel by Lou Rand titled The Gay Detective. It too was largely overlooked because of its pulp origins. It was only recently that gay mystery novels really took off and became truly a marketable subgenre.
Gunn breaks his history into bite-sized sections based on authors, characters, themes, and sometimes the target audience. For instance, you'll find Bleeding Hearts listed under Teenage Sleuths (for Teenage Readers). The bibliography claims to be the most comprehensive ever offered on this subject, including more than 600 novels, over 100 movies, and nearly 20 television or video series.
If you enjoy mysteries in general, and gay mysteries in particular, then you'll want to be sure to pick up a copy of this book. It will provide you with a reading list to last a long, long time!
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