Night Drop

How did I not know this series existed? Excellent, fast-paced, twisty-plotted gay mystery. My only complaint is that a book set after I graduated from college is considered “historical.”

1992 Los Angeles, in the aftermath of the rioting and fires, a result of the verdict in the Rodney King trial. Noah Valentine, Pinx Video Store owner notices that a neighbor camera shop business, was burned. Checking his records, he notes that Guy Peterson had some videos out and stops by his apartment to pick them up. On his arrival he finds Guy’s family dividing up his belongings, and is told he died in the fire.

Noah and his downstairs neighbors become convinced that something else happened to Guy and that he did not die in the fire. But who was the body? They quietly begin to investigate.

Marshall Thornton draws the scene of 1990s Los Angeles, through the eyes of a young gay man, Noah Valentine who owns a video rental store and show more just recently lost his partner. I enjoyed this book because the murder was well-plotted, the characters were believable and the depiction of the 1990s was similar to my remembrances of the 1990s. show less

Set in the early years of the 1990s, Night Drop feels like it's set in the time period - in the years before the internet became truly useful, before cell phones became ubiquitous, when video tapes still ruled the roost ... I had flashbacks to visiting Blockbuster and Media Play ...

Any way, Noah Valentine is a video store owner who gets himself entangled into a murder investigation by being just a tad too nosy for his own good. The mystery is a tad on the thin side, but I enjoyed it.

This one was a bit slow to read, but it's better (in my head) as a movie. This main character's quite a lot different than others of this author's (that I've read).

It kept me curious.

The last seven chapters kept me reading straight through.

It could have used a loving copy-edit to insert a few missing words and eliminate the bit of dialogue that wasn't supposed to be separated into two lines. Nothing you can't figure out.

And then, at the end of the last chapter, I sat a moment, and then ordered the second book.

Really enjoyed this - very heavily focused on the mystery solving aspect. No romance in this book. However it does appear to be part of a longer story arc