Richard Stevenson (2) (1938–2022)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A dishonorably discharged World War II vet takes a job as a private investigator and begins looking into a sudden and extraordinary wave of gay-bashing in Philadelphia.

It's steaming August in post-war Philadelphia. Clifford Waterman, dishonorably discharged from the Army for "an indecent act with a native" in Cairo, can't go back to his job as a police detective and is struggling to make a go of it as a private investigator. He's soon hired to help a show more young man caught in a gay bar raid who can't afford the $500 bribe a corrupt judge demands to make a "morals charge" go away.

In the blink of an eye, an entire gay neighborhood is suddenly under siege, and Waterman has to find out why the cops, courts, and the city powers that be have unleashed a wave of brutal gay-bashing—astonishing even for that time and place.

Kept moving by Jim Beam, bluesy jazz, and a stubborn sense of outsider's pride, Waterman makes his way through Philadelphia's social, political, and financial swamp to rescue a few unlucky souls and inflict at least a bit of damage to the rotten system that would lead to the Stonewall rebellion in New York City 22 years later.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Vale Richard Stevenson, 1938-2022. This story was to launch a new series of historical mysteries that will not now see their fruition. As a standalone, this is not the most satisfying read for us who read our mysteries to see ma'at served, order restored, evil accounted for.

Why then bother to read it? Because this past could easily become our collective future.

Its thrust is the (I had hoped) well-established truth that gayness is only made problematic by the systems designed to make it so; those are always systems of greed, exclusion, and therefore profit.

Waterman is a decently well-delineated character whose embrace of Otherness resonates with me. I get entirely his desire to stand up and say, "Enough is enough," in the face of those who want only one thing: More. He says "enough" in the face of the yawning voids that scream for, demand, extort, and ruin in search of More.

I hope the pathology of organizing your life in pursuit of More is obvious. I hope the courage to say "enough" exists in greater quantity than the laziness or apathy to let the loudest, the nastiest, the least likely to forgive have their way unopposed.

Because there is no end to, no satisfaction in, no glut capable of ending the search for, More. show less

Highly enjoyable and very funny. Huntingdon "Hunny" Van Horn and his family are a fun, if crude, bunch to encounter. Hunny and his honey, Art, are a fun loving and living couple who win a billion dollars in a lottery drawing and immediately become beset by people, problems, old grudges and blackmail coming out of the woodwork. Desperate for help, Hunny calls on Donald Stratchey for help with the attempts at blackmail and the action just gets more outrageous, and funny, from there.

I was show more particularly amused by the thinly disguised 'Bill O'Malley' and 'Focks News'. Stevenson got the snide-ness, baiting, mocking, "moral" outrage and you-name-it down to a "t". show less

Knock Off the Hat is the first volume in what I hope will be an ongoing series that improves with time. The central character, Clifford Waterman, is a former police officer and WWII veteran, dishonorably discharged for being gay, currently working as a private investigator. Waterman's an interesting character: comfortable with his own homosexuality, but resigned to the status quo of bar life and the constant threat of harassment or violence from the police.

Knock off the Hat opens in the show more aftermath of a police bar raid. For years, gay men have been able to get morals charged dropped via an unethical and homophobic judge (known as "The Hat") for a payment of $50. Suddenly that price is raised to $500, far more money than many men can raise, dooming them to public exposure and a shattered life—or suicide. Waterman is hired to try to find a way around this price increase, through a mix of investigation and favors from others. From there the story grows more complex.

I enjoyed the novel, but the writing style felt heavy-handed—almost as if the sentences were soldiers dutifully marching past me in formation. I realize that description may not make sense, but it definitely describes my experience reading Knock Off the Hat. I expect, however, that this is a series where both the style and the characters will grow more satisfyingly complex over time, and I will definitely have an eye open for the next volume.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. show less

It's always hard to review later books in a mystery series. Generally you've come to expect certain things of the series and the author delivers. This book however stands out for the setting in Thailand, which the author makes both interesting and appealing. The mystery itself is convoluted and has a lot more action than the usual Donald Strachey book.