Russell is lured into the countryside where an attempt is made to intimidate him into dropping a case. But he doesn't have a case until the next week when he gets a client asking him to help him deal with a blackmail note.

Nice and twisty. I still deplore Russell's liking for mixing beer (nasty stuff in itself) and clamato (which sounds absolutely revolting). ( )

This was a really good read. Anthony Bidulka has created a great detective in Russell Quant, a gay P.I. living in Saskatoon. I also really liked his friends and I loved his mother who is staying with Russell over the Christmas season when the action in this book takes place. This is the second Russell Quant mystery but the first one I've read. I also have the first one on my TBR pile and I plan to pick it up soon. I am delighted to find out from Bidulka's website that there are 6 more books in this series.

In this book (set as I said just before Christmas) Russell takes on a new case involving blackmail of an accountant, Daniel. The accountant is married but has been having sex with men on the side. One of these episodes has come back to haunt him. Daniel got a note asking for $50,000 which was slipped inside an envelope when he was receiving an award for Business Person of the Year. Daniel has decided not to pay the money and he has hired Russell to find out who the blackmailer is. There are only several men that Daniel has had sex with but given the nature of gay hook-ups Daniel doesn't even know their real names. Russell tracks them down but in the process is followed himself. He even has to take a trip to New York City which gives him a chance to do some shopping, eating and seeing some plays. The things a PI has to do for work!

Bidulka did a really good job of the setting. Anyone familiar with the prairies in the grips of winter will recognize it and anyone who isn't will wonder why we prairie people put up with winter. I also thought his handling of the gay scene was well done. ( )

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Book Report: Saskatoon's only gay PI, Russell Quant, is hired by a mysterious client to discover and neutralize (this is Canada, folks, it doesn't mean "kill" to them) a blakcmailer known only as "Loverboy," who is making life a living nightmare for several people with secrets.

And doesn't every single body around Russell prove to have them? Neighbor and glamourous gal-pal Sereena seems to be a walking secret, as a trip to New York City makes sharply obvious. Even Russell's Ukrainian matushka, who--horrors!--arrives for a visit mid-case, even she has secrets!

And as Loverboy ratchets up the mean-and-nasty, Russell ends up in serious physical danger. When all comes right in the end, this reader was moved to cheer. Not recommended for those who do not live alone, though.

My Review: I swoon about every ten pages, I've fallen so deeply in luuuuv with Russell. He's so *dreamy*!

But on a more hard-headed note, the first novel in the series (Amuse Bouche) had character-development flaws that I'd've hoped not to see in this book. Not so. Some characters are treated to a big build-up and then left. Some have huge developments in their lives that are casually passed off. It grates on me a little bit.

But in the end, I really enjoy visiting Saskatoon, and I quite like the sense of joining Russell's life that Bidulka manages to convey. Particularly fun is Russell's heavily accented mother..."sonsyou" (basically "sonny boy") is the only thing she calls him...and the obvious thought is that Ukrainian gay boy Bidulka is drawing on life experience here.

Book three here I come! I need to know more about Russell. After all, we're going to be married. Soon as I get finished with that transfictional rematerializer in the garage. ( )

This is one where the ending was better than the book as a whole. I could not see the point of much of what was going on. But the book was good as a visit with characters I enjoy. ( )

http://startredder.livejournal.com/397904.html#cutid1 ( )