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Donald Strachey #16
Killer Reunion
It's a family reunion in the era of American tribal politics, and what could go wrong? Plenty, including murder, when the Callahan clan convenes at a New England country inn and one of the most politically outspoken relatives is the victim of a bizarre poisoning.
Timothy Callahan and his long-time spouse, Albany PI Don Strachey, contend not just with dampened spirits but with injustice when a misguided local cop zeroes in on an innocent Callahan. PI Strachey has to unearth a complicated family's hidden history, nail the real killer, and expose an act of long-contained violent rage in this disturbing tale of the way we live now.
Timothy Callahan and his long-time spouse, Albany PI Don Strachey, contend not just with dampened spirits but with injustice when a misguided local cop zeroes in on an innocent Callahan. PI Strachey has to unearth a complicated family's hidden history, nail the real killer, and expose an act of long-contained violent rage in this disturbing tale of the way we live now.
- GenresMysteryLGBTM M Romance
189 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 26, 2019
About the author
Richard Stevenson
83 books143 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Richard Stevenson is the pseudonym of Richard Lipez, the author of nine books, including the Don Strachey private eye series. The Strachey books are being filmed by here!, the first gay television network. Lipez also co-wrote Grand Scam with Peter Stein, and contributed to Crimes of the Scene: A Mystery Novel Guide for the International Traveler. He is a mystery columnist for The Washington Post and a former editorial writer at The Berkshire Eagle. His reporting, reviews and fiction have appeared in The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Progressive, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and many other publications. He grew up and went to college in Pennsylvania and served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1962-64. Lipez lives in Becket, Massachusetts and is married to sculptor Joe Wheaton.
Richard Stevenson is the pseudonym of Richard Lipez, the author of nine books, including the Don Strachey private eye series. The Strachey books are being filmed by here!, the first gay television network. Lipez also co-wrote Grand Scam with Peter Stein, and contributed to Crimes of the Scene: A Mystery Novel Guide for the International Traveler. He is a mystery columnist for The Washington Post and a former editorial writer at The Berkshire Eagle. His reporting, reviews and fiction have appeared in The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Progressive, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and many other publications. He grew up and went to college in Pennsylvania and served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1962-64. Lipez lives in Becket, Massachusetts and is married to sculptor Joe Wheaton.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Did Not Finish
December 17, 2020DNF @ 18%
Still no murder or mystery. And after wishing we'd had more Timmy in the last couple of books, you'd think a story about his family reunion would have more of him in it too. Unfortunately, we spend the first nine chapters getting to know the various members of his extended family (and even learning things about the ones who aren't there) than we spend time with Timmy. And his family is awful. Every single one of them. I refuse to believe our precious Timmy came from this stock.
If I'd read this last year when it came out, I might have been able to get through it. But after this year? No, not happening. I didn't skip Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, just to be stuck with someone else's family arguing over politics and Trump. Maybe I'll try this again in a year or two or ten, when the scars aren't so fresh and raw.
Still no murder or mystery. And after wishing we'd had more Timmy in the last couple of books, you'd think a story about his family reunion would have more of him in it too. Unfortunately, we spend the first nine chapters getting to know the various members of his extended family (and even learning things about the ones who aren't there) than we spend time with Timmy. And his family is awful. Every single one of them. I refuse to believe our precious Timmy came from this stock.
If I'd read this last year when it came out, I might have been able to get through it. But after this year? No, not happening. I didn't skip Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, just to be stuck with someone else's family arguing over politics and Trump. Maybe I'll try this again in a year or two or ten, when the scars aren't so fresh and raw.
November 5, 2019
Killer Reunion
By Richard Stevenson
MLR Press, 2019
Four stars
Donald Strachey is back, and this time he’s in the Berkshires at a his husband Timmy Callahan’s family reunion. We all know how tense these can be, but just imagine when there’s a murder in the middle of it.
What has always been so much fun about the Don Strachey mysteries is the matter-of-fact way they present Don and Timmy as a couple, and plop them into the middle of American life, spinning it to reflect their specific context as a middle-aged couple living in Albany, New York. These are not cozy in the way Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries were, but they have a certain calculated provincial American tone – removed from big cities, reflective of Middle America and its sometimes conflicted values.
Stevenson has no pretense to high-flown literature, and there no attempt to build tension or anxiety. In spite of Don’s skills as a private investigator, these stories are really about extraordinary events in the lives of ordinary people – ordinary people including ordinary gay people.
This book is very much focused in the USA of the here and now, with all of the barely hidden turmoil arising from the current government and the profound divide it has created in the American people. That specific timeliness is both the social framework for the mystery, and something of a red herring, and Stevenson plays it nicely, distracting us with family politics that serve to obscure the hidden truth.
There is a quiet harm to the Don Strachey novels that makes effortlessly enjoyable.
By Richard Stevenson
MLR Press, 2019
Four stars
Donald Strachey is back, and this time he’s in the Berkshires at a his husband Timmy Callahan’s family reunion. We all know how tense these can be, but just imagine when there’s a murder in the middle of it.
What has always been so much fun about the Don Strachey mysteries is the matter-of-fact way they present Don and Timmy as a couple, and plop them into the middle of American life, spinning it to reflect their specific context as a middle-aged couple living in Albany, New York. These are not cozy in the way Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries were, but they have a certain calculated provincial American tone – removed from big cities, reflective of Middle America and its sometimes conflicted values.
Stevenson has no pretense to high-flown literature, and there no attempt to build tension or anxiety. In spite of Don’s skills as a private investigator, these stories are really about extraordinary events in the lives of ordinary people – ordinary people including ordinary gay people.
This book is very much focused in the USA of the here and now, with all of the barely hidden turmoil arising from the current government and the profound divide it has created in the American people. That specific timeliness is both the social framework for the mystery, and something of a red herring, and Stevenson plays it nicely, distracting us with family politics that serve to obscure the hidden truth.
There is a quiet harm to the Don Strachey novels that makes effortlessly enjoyable.
July 24, 2020
I really just don't know what to do with Don and Timmy anymore. Stevenson has chosen to ignore the passage of time (they should be in their 70s based on the original timeline of the books), which would be fine, if something besides their stated age got updated as well -- I expect different things of someone in their 50s than someone in their 70s. (Which is not to say that older folks get a pass on their attitudes, of course, but it *surprises* me less when they disappoint me.) There were just so many jarring moments in here that it took away a lot of my enjoyment of the book. Sure, they don't like Trump, but Don and Timmy just have no sense of *urgency* to their politics -- they're so cocooned in privilege and safety now that their radical past is just... gone (UNLIKE the earlier books). They're so *smug* now. :(
August 29, 2020
A silly, fun, welcome distraction but an unremarkable addition to the series.
January 24, 2021
One of my favorite mystery series.
September 19, 2021
A fun mystery that hit a little too close to home.
June 21, 2019
A Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words Review
Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5
For the Full review visit https://wp.me/p220KL-h2B
From that review:I've been a huge fan of this author and series from the beginning and in multiple formats. From the first novel, Death Trick, to the four movies made for here! tv from four of the series stories (which were incredible btw), I watched the character of Donald Strachey grow with the times, his personality mature, find love with Timothy Callahan, marry and settle with said Timothy into a happy established couple. What an absolute joy it's been! All while solving some stuplying and some downright horrific mystery cases.
In Killer Reunion (Donald Strachey Mystery #16), author Richard Stevenson has given Timothy and cousin Beth the daunting task of assembling the Callahan clan for a family reunion.in a picturesque, read old, inn in the country. Half the family is rabid Trumpites with their MAGA hats, the other half rabid liberals with their Bernie pins. One rule of the gathering? No politics! There's also a funeral, broken promises, an ex con, and more twists and turns then you can imagine when a dead body (a relative shows up and Donald is enlisted to help solve the mystery.
For all our reviews, visit http://scatteredthoughtsandroguewords...
Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5
For the Full review visit https://wp.me/p220KL-h2B
From that review:I've been a huge fan of this author and series from the beginning and in multiple formats. From the first novel, Death Trick, to the four movies made for here! tv from four of the series stories (which were incredible btw), I watched the character of Donald Strachey grow with the times, his personality mature, find love with Timothy Callahan, marry and settle with said Timothy into a happy established couple. What an absolute joy it's been! All while solving some stuplying and some downright horrific mystery cases.
In Killer Reunion (Donald Strachey Mystery #16), author Richard Stevenson has given Timothy and cousin Beth the daunting task of assembling the Callahan clan for a family reunion.in a picturesque, read old, inn in the country. Half the family is rabid Trumpites with their MAGA hats, the other half rabid liberals with their Bernie pins. One rule of the gathering? No politics! There's also a funeral, broken promises, an ex con, and more twists and turns then you can imagine when a dead body (a relative shows up and Donald is enlisted to help solve the mystery.
For all our reviews, visit http://scatteredthoughtsandroguewords...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews