One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: LGBT - M/M Mystery Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 224 Pages
Formats: Paperback


Josh Lanyon has a gift for penning an interesting mystery full of quirky and original characters that keeps the reader guessing as they race along to the end of the story and The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks is no exception.

Perry Foster is a young artist who's just had his heart broken over an internet relationship gone bad. He comes home early after taking a vacation to risk his heart and his money on a trip to see the man he thought would be his future and - dejected and a little broken - he lets himself into his apartment only to stumble across a dead body in his bathtub. Panicked and horrified, he races out and down to the main floor of the boarding house he lives in and slams, gasping and struggling for breath, into the rough ex-military body of Nick Reno.

When Perry finally manages to gasp out that there's a body in his tub, Reno goes to check it out...reluctantly and feeling much put upon...only to find no body. There's only a smudge of something that looks and smells like blood in the tub, and a shoe that wouldn't have come close to fitting the small-bodied Perry. Still, Reno's not convinced. Not until the police are called anyway, and by the time THEY check out Perry's room, even the smallest traces of anyone being dead there have been washed clean...from the top floor apartment...with no one seeing anyone come and go.

When the gruff and stand-offish Nick and the almost timid yet insistent Perry team up to try to figure out what's going on in their boarding house, the mystery really takes off, and so does the slow development of a wonderfully deep friendship and relationship. The plot is mostly centered strictly on the mystery - what romance there is is subtly and realistically woven into the plot instead of guiding it. As it's been said, the romance is M/M, so if that's not your cuppa, you probably shouldn't read Lanyon.

The book isn't a totally flawless endeavor, though my issues were relatively minor. There were a couple of spots where I thought the mystery got a bit predictable and the action a bit staid, and I would've liked to have seen a bit more romance (that's strictly personal preference, not a critique, what was there was very well done) but all in all, I very much enjoyed The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks and can recommend it to those who like mysteries with a lot of odd duck characters and a couple of strong leading men.