Murder on Camac by Joseph R.G. DeMarco

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Murder on Camac was not an easy book to start reading since it’s almost 400 pages long, and I was there thinking, well, it’s a mystery, not exactly the genre of book I like, and it’s soo long… will I have the patience to finish it? So I waited and waited, till the moment I was at home, quiet and with a lot of time, and gathering all the patience I have, starting reading and… it was fast and easy and light… it was light, something that I have almost never found in a mystery. And there was also a romance, or maybe two, or three, or… I lost the count and all the romances have the same man, Marco Fontana.

P.I. Marco is a mix of Philip Marlowe and Don Juan, with the added spicy that he is gay. You can’t turn a page that Marco is eyeing once man more, and adding this to the fact that he is the owner of a male stripper group called StripGuyz, there are a lot of young, hot and willing boys around Marco. Plus he is in two possible relationships: Anton, stripper and manager of StripGuyz who is waiting for Marco to that THE decision, to commit for a long term relationship, and till the moment Marco will not say the magic two little words, “I do”, he is not putting out; and then there is Luke, willing to put out and willing to wait for Marco, and in the meantime helping out him with his P.I. job, and there is also the little detail that Marco’s mom likes Luke. But even if Marco should have his hands plenty occupied, he is not unaffected by all the pretty boys he sees around, I think that practically every men he met was subjected to a check over and weighted as possible fling or maybe something more. And if they didn’t pass the test as applicants for possible lovers, they were offered a job as strippers, if they are in the age range; but Marco didn’t test only the young one, in this novel there are also a lot of older guys, even an 80 years old guy, and all of them received a special look from Marco.

But the pretty boys are not the only thing to make this novel a special one, there is another important and wonderful main character, Philadelphia. All the novel is set in the gayborhood of Philadelphia and around there. Since I visited the city this last September, I recognized some places, and some of the shops, like Giovanni’s Room, I know they are real. I don’t know if all the others are, like the gay themed videostore or Bubbles, the stripper club, but even if they are not, I bet there are similar one, since the city felt too real to not be.

Ok, ok, I know what you are thinking, this is a mystery, when you are starting to talk of the mystery. Never! Since you can’t talk about the mystery without giving out the mystery itself. What I can say you is that, I would have bet the culprit was one person that in the end was not, but I had to arrive to the last chapter to understand it.

Murder on Camac will bring you hand in hand inside the old cobbled paved street of Philadelphia, searching the evidences to resolve the mystery while “window shopping” men candy: all the best (at least for me) in one book.

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