Mirage City
An Evander Mills Mystery
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Lev AC Rosen delivers a new and captivating 1950s mystery in this dazzling, award-winning series
Private Investigator Evander “Andy” Mills’ next case takes him out of his comfort zone in San Francisco—and much to his dismay, back home to Los Angeles. After a secretive queer rights organization called the Mattachine Society enlists Andy to find some missing members, he must dodge not only motorcycle gangs and mysterious forces, but his own mother, too.
Avoiding her proves to be a challenge when the case leads Andy to the psychiatric clinic she works at. Worlds collide, buried secrets are dug up, and Andy realizes he's going to have to make some hard choices. With secrets, drugs, and doctors swirling around him, time is running out for Andy to locate the missing and get them to safety. And for him to make it back to San Francisco in one piece.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The fourth installment in Rosen's series featuring gay ex-cop turned private investigator Evander Mills (after Rough Pages) marries the rousing action of a well-built procedural with fascinating tidbits of queer history. In 1950s San Francisco, an anxious member of the local chapter of the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organizations, comes to Mills's office above a gay bar and asks him to track down three members who've stopped attending meetings following a rift within the national organization. Evander heads to his hometown of L.A. to check out the group's new headquarters and look into a secret gay biker club's possible involvement with the case. Once there, he's unable to avoid his estranged mother, whose new nursing job seems to be tied up in the investigation. Rosen has a blast toying with the conventions of L.A. noir, but this is more than pale Raymond Chandler pastiche—it's a smart, gimmick-free puzzle that stands on its own. The real magic, though, is in Rosen's depiction of the struggles and triumphs of midcentury queer life: he highlights pockets of LGBTQ+ resilience, including Evander's San Francisco community and emergent gay subcultures in L.A., without painting the past in too rosy a light. This series deserves a long life.
