Lavender House

this is really excellent in just about all the ways. the historical setting felt like one of the characters, and it made me understand so much clearer what it would have been like to live as a queer person in the 50's, even in san francisco (before it was known for its gay scene). like i knew our history, but this brought it home in such an intimate way, and even though he doesn't frame it this way, shows an example of early "found family" and why it matters to the queer community. on top of that, the story and mystery were great. the mystery didn't feel like the main point because the setting overshadowed everything (in a good way), although it wasn't undercooked either. i love that we've gotten to the place in fiction where gay show more characters can be terrible people, but i'm so glad that none of them were the killer here. i thought it just had to be the straight person to make this "family" work and i would have been really disappointed had it been anyone in the house other than her.

this is beautifully done. show less

When I picked up this book, I didn't put it together that the author is the same person who wrote Jack of Hearts (and other parts), which is a title that has been high on censorship lists over the past couple of years (including in my own school district). I haven't read that novel, so I didn't really know what to expect. This story is set in 1952 San Francisco. The protagonist is Evander (he goes by Andy but I like Evander better) Mills, a recently-ex-cop who loses his job because he gets swept up in a gay club raid, is outed to his colleagues, and summarily fired. He is contemplating his next move (the future looks pretty grim) when he is offered the opportunity to investigate a suspicious death. The deceased is Irene Lamontaine, the show more matriarch of a soap company, and (it turns out) a secret gay family. That sounds weird, but it's exactly that. She is gay, her son is gay, and her son's "wife" is gay, and they all live together with their assorted partners and family members in a secluded mansion outside the city. As he digs into the family situation, Andy also has to examine his own life and history, as well as the meaning of family when you're part of a community that is (at that point in history) almost universally reviled -- even illegal. It's an interesting idea, and a not uncommon theme in the world of LGBTQ, since many people who identify as other than heterosexual are forced to create their own families, even now. Andy finds himself drawn to this group, and not really sure how to deal with the openness, after a lifetime of hiding and secrecy. It's a really interesting theme -- a frank and sometimes stark illustration of a time that seems both modern and totally backward in terms of humanity and civility -- and a compelling setting for a murder mystery. show less

4.5 rounded up. Although "Lavender House" might be a touch easy to solve for anyone who has read a few Agatha Christies, it is an entertaining, well-written mystery with a delightful little cast and a fun setting! I hope Rosen writes more like this in the future; it's a great balance of suspense and character development, and made for a solid autumn weekend read. The world needs more queer mysteries like this!

We open in a bar, and a woman enters:

"Her lips are painted bright red. She's wearing a yellow skirt that cuts at the calf and a matching jacket decorated with a circular black-stoned brooch. Perched on her short, dark (surely dyed at her age) hair is a small hat with a small pin in it of an overlapping "WAC" -- the Women's Athletic Club. Her style is dated, but very high society. I've seen plenty of women like her, their money protecting them from the change they fear so badly, like a suit made of gold foil.

"She lights her cigarette, perched in a holder, and asks the bartender for a Manhattan. She has a deep, sharp voice, and it cuts through the fog of drunkenness in my mind. She's right out of a movie -- she could ask me to kill her show more husband any second now."

Can't get too much more noir than that, which is appropriate, because it's 1952. Evander "Andy" Mills, our narrator, has just been thrown off the San Francisco police force after being caught at a gay bar in a police raid doing "the things men do in the bathroom of the Black Cat."

The woman who approaches him in that opening scene is Pearl Velez, and she wants Andy to solve a murder. The two of them are alone in her car when he asks who's been murdered, but even in that isolation, it's still a shock when her answer is "my wife."

Pearl and Irene had built an unusual home for themselves on an isolated estate outside the city, a place where their small family of gay men and lesbians can be themselves and live without the constant fear of life in the city. The rest of the family: Irene's son, Henry, and his boyfriend; Henry's wife/beard, Margo, and her girlfriend; and Margo's elderly mother, the only straight resident of Lavender House. There's also a gay butler, and a lesbian couple who work as cook and gardener.

Irene's family is in the soap business, and she was the head chemist/perfumer. That means that in addition to the members of the household, there are business rivals who might have motive.

Lavender House is a smartly plotted mystery, with a fine assortment of characters/suspects and a strong narrative voice. It's also a fine historical novel, a reminder of just how bleak and difficult life could be for sexual minorities in the not-too-distant past (and sadly, still is for too many today). And putting gay and lesbian folks at the center of the story gives it a point of view that helps it to stand out from a sea of noir-ish detective stories.

A second Andy Mills novel is already available (The Bell in the Fog), and there are certainly a lot of possible stories that can be built around a gay private eye who specializes in helping people who don't always have the option of going to the police. A very fine start to a promising series. show less

The matriarch of a soap empire, Irene Lamontaine dies suddenly, and her widow Pearl hires a recently disgraced policeman, Andy, to investigate the death to rule out murder. He gets invited to live at the Lavender House, a sanctuary for the queer Lamontaine family, while he figures out if it was a murder and if it was who had committed it, and if it was, was Irene's death more than meets the eye. I thought it was actually a locked room mystery, easily enticing the reader to help Andy solve it. Andy was a magnificent character, The world of queer people in the 1950s is a quiet but dangerous one, where love is criminalized, and identities are strictly policed. No one knows this better than Evander (Andy) Mills, a former detective who has show more been abruptly cut from his squad. On the day we first meet Andy, he is drowning his sorrows in a martini, or two, or three or four and preparing to take a long and permanent sleep in the bay. He believes that it's better if he is never to be seen or heard from again. He is stopped by the arrival of Pearl Velez, who says she knows why he was fired from the force…but that it’s actually a selling point for her. The wife of the matriarch of the esteemed Lamontaine soap empire, Pearl has a mystery for Andy to solve...did her wife fall off the balcony or was she pushed? It reads like the old 1950 mysteries. Lev AC Rosen is an absolute gem of an author and I cannot wait to see what he produces next. show less

A great piece of 50's detective fiction with a queer cast of characters, living in a historical time for queer folk in the USA after World War II. We get some insights on how being gay didn't really seem to matter during the war - everyone thought they were going to die, they just wanted to win, go home, back to normal life, start a family, start their dream career, etc. But once the war was one and once everyone came back home, those men who served are forced into the closet. And while gay bars and clubs have become legal to own and operate in California, they're very susceptible to police raids - whether legitimate suspected lewd acts are being committed there, or whether those accusations of lewd acts occurring on property are being show more used as an excuse for the local police to go gay bashing.

Our main character is a former cop that was caught at such a gay club, with his pants down, doing the very lewd acts in the bathroom the cops are always trying to stop. He's not charged with a crime, but definitely looked down upon by his co-workers and fired from the force. His days of cruising stops from there on out, since not only has he lost his job on the police force, but he's also been evicted from his apartment as a result of his firing (specifically the reason why he was fired). He spends his days drinking his depression away until he's approached by a woman with an opportunity: figure out how her wife died, and more specifically, figure out whether or not it was murder.

It's this fateful encounter that helps him get back on his feet, helps him find purpose in working, especially when he meets the residents of the titular Lavender House, all queer and living their best lives with their partners behind the walls of the estate. On the surface everyone is single, or has a beard they're married to in order to pass as straight, but in the Lavender House, they're free. No need to go cruising in clubs, no need to risk flirting with someone at the risk of assault, no risk of getting gay bashed by a cop. And while reluctant to take the case originally, he ends up taking the investigation into his own hands once the clues indicate that a murder did actually take place, and because the people of Lavender House wouldn't be able to seek justice outside of the estate. No one would care to help. No one would bother to help. And on top of that? If their being queer gets out, it'll just bring more danger, the family business will burn to the ground, the scandal would kill them, so many lives would be ruined. So of course Evander Mills has to take the case. In some ways, maybe he owes it to himself to take this shot at a new life where people are okay with him being queer - as well as to these people who can't get justice themselves through normal channels.

This was a wonderful story from start to finish, and I listened all the way through the audiobook just waiting to see what happens next. Each one of the main characters is interesting in their own way, has their own experiences with queerness in this socially restricted time period, and it's nice seeing them in healthy relationships (at least inside of the Lavender House). And because this is historical fiction, we really see the closeted beauty of the queer community within the house, get insight on what gay clubs in the era were like, and how people who've been outcast for simply being queer end up living in a society that won't accept them openly. However, we can't appreciate that beauty without the ugliness: and that's where the gay bashing and era-appropriate slurs come in... We see the ugliness and the police brutality toward the queer community, we see those with scars, those trying to recover from recent attacks - and we also see the spiral that Evander Mills ends up having when he gets called the F slur by a former colleague. The downward spiral he goes down and the sheer emotional event horizon he endures is really impactful. Really the story has a lot of emotions because these queer characters are living in hiding, or out and about at the risk of violence and destitution. And the fact that this closeted main character finds some level of community and purpose while taking this case is oddly heart warming; we're watching him slowly accept himself because he finally knows other people in the same boat, and doesn't feel the need to go cruising because in a place of acceptance, there's no need to act on risky acts and desires out of desperation for connection.

As for the mystery itself, it's a murder mystery and it's the characters involved that make it interesting, especially because, if the murderer is someone on the outside of Lavender House - it's residents have to worry about being outed. It also really keeps you guessing for a while because so many interesting characters are involved and considered suspects, BUT toward the end of the book, the solution looks like it's going in a certain direction and after that it becomes pretty obvious who it might be, especially in hindsight. That's the one thing about the book that was kind of a disappointment (again, especially in hindsight), but that final solution to the mystery doesn't make it a bad book or a bad story. It's a little disappointing when you can see it and you're just waiting for the big reveal to happen in-universe, but I still enjoyed the ride and seeing all the character interactions, and how Evander Mills is slowly healing and finally accepting himself as gay.

I definitely recommend the book, and the audiobook version was very enjoyable. The narrator's voice was perfect for Evander Mills, and the little bit of voice acting (the one narrator trying to do different voices for each character) is a very nice touch! And frankly the cover is gorgeous... It was the big pull for me borrowing it from my library in digital form in the first place. The cover alone would make a lovely addition to your physical book collection, and having the cover as a poster or other art print you could frame would look beautiful in one's home! show less

My mystery book club met this past Thursday to discuss the January read, Lavender House, the first in a historical mystery series by Lev A.C. Rosen. Count me among the members (all of us) who loved it. While the whodunit may not have been a big surprise to most, other aspects of the novel more than made up for it. There is a definite noir influence in the way the novel is written and how the story unfolds. It is a fairly straightforward mystery with no real side stories to compete for the reader's attention. The novel opens with the protagonist, Evander "Andy" Mills, getting drunk in a bar. He feels hopeless and desperate, having lost his job as a police inspector because it is discovered he is gay. When a woman walks into the bar to show more ask his help solving the murder of her wife, Andy is reluctant, but she soon talks him into it.

The Lamontaine estate, called Lavender House, is nothing like Andy has ever seen or experienced before. He's always had to keep that part of himself hidden, wearing a mask day in and day out, careful to hide his sexuality and knowing it will not just cost him is job, but everything else as well. I was especially taken with how Rosen is able to demonstrate how significant insignificant moments were to Andy because they were experiences he had never had. Hands touching, heads on shoulders. Little moments of intimacy and love shared openly.

Each of the characters were richly drawn, their backstories compelling. At first I wasn't too fond of most of the residents of Lavender House, each one a suspect in their own right, but that changed the more I got to know the characters. There was one point while reading that I turned to my husband and told him I didn't want any of them to be the killer because I liked them all. Well, mostly all of them. There were one or two characters that I didn't warm too. That old adage of not judging a book by its cover holds for people too. You never know what a person is going through--or has been through--unless you take the time to get to know them.

Rosen captures the time period very well. I am kicking myself for not recognizing the double meaning in the title right away, especially after reading books like Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo and Pulp by Robin Talley. The Lavender Scare was a horrible time in U.S. history with mass job firings and blackballing, normalizing persecution and spreading moral panic of anyone who was or was believed to be homosexual. It at the height of McCarthyism. It's an interesting choice for the title of Rosen's novel and the name of the Lamontaine family home to bear the word Lavender in them. Lavender was Irene's favorite flower and scent, which is why Lavender House got its name, and I like that the author reclaims the word here.

There were some tense and brutal scenes in which the reader is given a glimpse of how cruel people, especially those in authority were at the time, but there was also the occasional moment of kindness and hope. While it's nice to think we have come a long way since that time, in many ways unfortunately, we have barely scratched the surface and sometimes it feels like we are sliding backward. show less