reviews_and_ramblings | The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks by Josh Lanyon

Don't change something that is good. Josh Lanyon probably knows the lesson and so in this new book, he re-invent the pair that made famous the Adrien English series.

Perry is a 23 years old struggling artist with a penchant for mystery novels and the eyes full of unlikely romance. He is not at all the type to live alone, asthmatic and without the means to take care for himself, he was kicked out of home when he came out to his parents. Probably they would see some reason sooner or later, but Perry thought well to leave the city and banish himself in a creepy country manor turned boarding house. While trying to survive selling his paintings he also entertained an online romance with Mr Right, a romance which burst like a soap bubble the first time they met.

Running home with the tail between his leg, Perry has the unpleasant surprise to find a dead body in his bathtub; the only thing he can do is searching help and the only man available at the moment is his grumpy neighbor, a reserved ex marine, Nick. Reluctant, Nick searches out Perry's small apartment, where he doesn't find any corpse, but only some clues that a body could be there. Clues that, when the police arrives, are missing.

Nick has no intention to be involved, he is moving in another city in few weeks, but the puppy eyes of Perry are too irresistible. Even if Nick is a divorced man, and Perry the openly gay artist, it soon appears clear that Nick is the one with the sexual experience that should be of Perry. And not only, even if Perry has some good idea on the why of the dead body, it's Nick who has field experience to conduct an impromptu and domestic investigation. As in every worthy mystery, all the tenants of the manor could be the culprit, for different reasons: I had my idea, and this time, it wasn't the right one. As always when I read a mystery, I can't say much on the story, since I don't want to spoil the story: enough to say that usually I'm quite good in single out the right ipothesis among the various the author features. This is a classical mystery, where the author opens various possible paths, and the game is to single out the right one.

More interesting for me was the relationship between Perry and Nick. Nick was so cold and controlled that I almost feared that they would arrive to the end of the story without doing nothing; I consoled myself with the warning the publisher enclosed to the blurb, of possible situations that readers could find objectionable... and that I would find objectionable if I hadn't find them! Anyway, after establishing that Perry didn't have any experience, Nick, instead of behave like a stoic man, and leave the kid untouched and unknowing, thought well to seduce him, probably thinking to do him a favor. Tsk, tsk Nick, not at all a good behavior for an hero, above all since he hasn't any intention to stay around and take care of the kid afterward... doesn't he know that a knight in shining armor who debauch a virgin is expected to do the right thing? Truth be told, Perry didn't object, and then he was a 23 years old virgin! maybe he thought that it was his last chance...

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Amazon Kindle: The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

Amazon: The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

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