HOW TO HAVE A KILLER TIME IN DC

A fledgling travel writer makes a splash in his first out-of-town assignment.

Oliver Popp, a 24-year-old gay man with autism, has done so well writing short front-of-book pieces for the San Francisco–based Offbeat Traveler that his managing editor, Drea Hollingsworth, sends him to the nation’s capital to do a piece on the city’s attempts to revive its flagging tourist industry. After just under a year on the job, he worries whether he’s ready for such a big assignment. When he arrives in D.C., still reeling with anxiety over being away from his mother’s cozy home in Oakland, he’s further discombobulated by meeting his photographer, Ricky Warner, a sexy guy who seems to have slept with half the men in D.C. Ricky urges Ollie to go further out of his comfort zone by ditching his itinerary. Instead of taking the Metro to a carefully curated list of tourist destinations, they go roaring around town in Ricky’s Corvair, inevitably getting into trouble. At a reception sponsored by Moonshot Motors, the pair take a spin in a self-driving car that hits and kills Elise Perkins, a software engineer Ollie happened to know from high school. Ricky convinces Ollie that, as journalists, they have a duty to investigate Elise’s death, and pretty soon, they’re breaking into hotel rooms in search of clues. That search vies touchingly with Ollie’s inner search into his complicated feelings toward Ricky in Lumley’s series debut. The biggest mystery is why Ricky, who’s attractive enough to get the attention of pretty much any guy he wants, should pursue shy, awkward Ollie.

The heart wants what it wants. Let’s hope Lumley offers a follow-up once his heroes’ hearts decide.