Snowball in Hell

Another one of the nicely written mystery novels from Lanyon, once again with a nice guy who is involved in a murder case, this time by being one of the prime suspects, who falls for the handsome macho detective as does that stallion does for him. The question (well, not really) is, will they be able to form a couple because this story takes place in the forties. ( )

I love the way that Josh Lanyon makes me feel about his characters. I always seem to start feeling ambivalent, maybe not even caring that much, and then no matter how short the story is, I quickly come to care about them and feel very strongly about them. I grew to love Matt and Nathan very quickly, and to hurt for them, and also -- obviously, I suppose -- to believe in their feelings and their predicament.

Snowball in Hell also has a reasonably solid plot: I wasn't too far behind the game, but it wasn't horribly predictable, either. I didn't care about the plot nearly as much as I cared about the characters -- there wasn't enough danger to either of them of being suspects, I think, so they weren't as deeply connected to the case as I'd like. I mean, Nathan was a suspect, but it didn't seem for a minute like Matt would push that angle. ( )

Wow. For a short book this packs a punch. I am in the middle of a Lanyon glom and unlike my normal gloms, I am not feeling fatigued.
This was my first non contemporary Lanyon. Well written, gritty.
Lanyon captures the time (at least how I feel the time to be) and the place well. I don't enjoy film noire, but this literary noire seemed to speak to me, seemed to wind its way into my soul.

The story is not a sweet love story with a HEA or even a HFN. But it is a love story.

( )

Wow. For a short book this packs a punch. I am in the middle of a Lanyon glom and unlike my normal gloms, I am not feeling fatigued.
This was my first non contemporary Lanyon. Well written, gritty.
Lanyon captures the time (at least how I feel the time to be) and the place well. I don't enjoy film noire, but this literary noire seemed to speak to me, seemed to wind its way into my soul.

The story is not a sweet love story with a HEA or even a HFN. But it is a love story.

( )

Well, this is more romantic suspense than romance and I wasn't expecting that for one. I liked the 'noir' atmosphere though and enjoyed it a lot. I also liked Nathan very much, he was a very sweet hero. On the other hand I don't know why, but I didn't feel I got to know Matt as well as I'd like. And I so desperately needed an epilogue! The ending was way too abrupt for my tastes, especially considering how many difficulties those two have to face. Still, a very nice & emotional read and very nice writing style. I feel that if there were a few more pages added to it, it would have been perfect. ( )