ROUGH PAGES

The gay community has bigger problems than nothing to read when a bookstore’s owners go missing.

It’s 1953 San Francisco, and Evander “Andy” Mills, a gay ex-cop turned private eye, has been summoned by a concerned friend: A bookstore that sells queer books has inexplicably closed for a week. Did the post office tip off the feds about the store’s monthly book service, which sends “obscene material” through the mail? And why is there no sign of the shop’s two owners, who seem to have vanished along with their list of book-service subscribers, all of whom are ripe for exposure or blackmail if their names get into the wrong hands? As Andy starts working the case, his search for the truth coincides with a need to conceal his own truth, including the scandalous reason he was kicked off the police force. The novel plays like a counterpoint to the muscularity of iconic 1950s noir. Sweet-tempered gumshoe Andy’s narration is about as hard-boiled as a scrambled egg, and while the book is inescapably an homage to the classic detective novels of San Francisco and elsewhere, it offers the central satisfaction of a cozy mystery: entrée into a stalwart and loving community bent on achieving justice. There’s a bit too much sighing and eye rolling, and as worthy as the book’s messages are, their airing can be somewhat ponderous (“These are our stories, and we need to read them, no matter what the government says”). But the plot is well oiled and, gratifyingly for the romantics out there, spiked with tender interludes that pay tribute to forbidden love.

A mystery for throwback-loving fans of Dashiell Hammett and Douglas Sirk alike.