Mardi Gras Mambo

Since today is Mardi Gras, I thought I would do a special post for today.  Here is a book from one of my favorite authors, Greg Herren.  If you love mystery novels, you should love Greg Herren’s Scotty Bradley Mysteries or his other series of mysteries about gay New Orleans private eye Chanse MacLeod.  The Scotty Bradley books are a bit wild, whereas the Chanse MacLeod books are a bit more sober.  Both are great reads.  And be sure to check out Greg’s blog, Queer and Loathing in America.

From Publishers Weekly

Herren serves up an entertaining gumbo of New Age spirituality, clairvoyance, international intrigue and hometown boosterism in his third New Orleans gay noir featuring PI and former go-go dancer Scotty Bradley (after 2004’s Jackson Square Jazz). When red-eyed Scotty arrives home at dawn after a night of pre–Mardi Gras partying, he finds two detectives waiting to question him about his recreational drug connection, Russian emigré Misha Saltikov. Scotty was seen visiting Misha in the French Quarter the previous evening shortly before the man was found murdered. The path to solving the crime leads Scotty to his own eccentric family as well as a pair of Russian doppelgängers and secrets long buried. Meanwhile, Scotty’s unorthodox love-à-trois with ex-FBI hunk Frank Sobieski and man-of-mystery Colin Cioni reaches its pinnacle just before Frank is kidnapped and Colin disappears. Implausible coincidences don’t detract from the fast-moving plot. The suggestive cover art gives fair warning of graphic gay sex, but the protagonist’s quirky charm will appeal to all readers.

Mardi Gras is the elaborate series of outdoor pageants and indoor tableau balls held annually during the winter social season in the United States, especially in New Orleans and Mobile. The carnival culminates on Fat or Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Rooted in European pre-Lenten revelries, the carnival tradition in the United States began in the colonial period and developed in tandem with racial policies and practices and survives as an extravagant spectacle of excess, decadence, and burlesque. The pageants, each sponsored by one of the many exclusive carnival organizations, are based upon themes drawn from mythology, history, or fiction and are often satiric of contemporary social issues.

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