Books: Canary (Valentine and Lovelace #4) By Nathan Aldyne (1986)

“Slate, once the darling of Boston’s gay brigade, is losing money like crazy, largely because someone keeps insisting on leaving dead bodies around. Do that often enough, and people start to stay away. And even though Valentine and Lovelace solved the murders in the previous months, it has not helped the business. When more of the clientele are turning up dead -strangled with neckties- turn up at the disco, even Donna Summer's music may not be enough to bring patrons back. The cops, of course are somewhat indifferent, even though there a precinct across the street. So once again, Daniel and Clarisse plunge into an investigation, and once again, it’s only them that can find the killer.” 

“I’m a commercial writer and I’m proud of that,” Michael McDowell was once quoted as saying. “I think it is a mistake to try to write for the ages. I write so that people can read my books with pleasure.” McDowell graduated with a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in English from Harvard in 1972. In 1978 he was awarded his doctorate degree in English and American Literature from Brandeis. He wanted to be a teacher, but sort of stumbled into writing, finding the genre field of horror, male adventure, detective, and thrillers. He admitted that the numerous pseudonyms and collaborations permitted him an opportunity to embrace the challenge of writing in genres that he might not have tried on his own. 

Anyways, when it came to this series, as successful as they were, real life apparently was the factor that he and his writing partner Dennis Schuetz stopped after four books. Apparently, they didn’t feel right about writing about the characters carefree lifestyle as AIDS was ravaging the gay community. That may explain, as well, why the guilt-free promiscuity is less here, than in the first two books. 

Also, for a while, I wondered exactly when he and Schuetz wrote the books, so fortunately, all of his papers and other correspondents have been curated at Bowling Green State University. Notes there indicate that the books were written within a year of their publication, meaning Canary was penned in 1985 when the AIDS epidemic was in high gear. 

As with the previous books, Canary has the rapid-fire dialogue of the Nick and Nora variety, a sort of 1930’s Thin Man series set in the 1980s, in a world populated by drag queens and the women to whom they give make-up tips. They mystery, at times, takes a back seat to issues Daniel and Clarisse’s (who is more predominate here) they have with their friends, but it’s still a fun book and wonderful time capsule to a time when life was still a struggle, but because you had friends –those chosen family members- all was forgotten for a weekend of dancing, drugs, sex, and alcohol

A time before a disease designed to wipe out the homos changed everything.   

Books: Slate (Valentine and Lovelace #3) by Nathan Aldyne (1984)

“Daniel Valentine and Clarissa Lovelace are back in Boston after the summer in P’Town. When Clarissa is gifted a run-down building by her gay uncle Noah, she and Daniel decide to make a dream come true: opening their own gay bar. While Clarissa heads off to law school, Daniel gets busy turning their new bar into Boston's grooviest bar. Everything is seemly going their way, with the remodel of the bar and Valentine dating a new man who just happens to be in construction. Then there is the new (and free apartment) to renovate as well. But when a particular writer of local gay rags, who knows a lot about everyone and is going to spill the tea in the next edition, ends up dead in Clarissa bed, the clock begins to tick to finish the bar plus try and solve another murder.” 

Odd, there is some continuity from the last book to this book but not from the first book to this book. Like the two previous titles, this is set in an exuberantly pre-AIDS world (though the Gay Men’s Choir gets a shout-out about doing a function that is related to AIDS, and then the book opens with Valentine in the hospital suffering from double-pneumonia, which where he meets Linc, who is suffering from some vague infection. It made me think that McDowell was trying to say something, but those sub-plots are dropped). And unlike the first two, there is only one murder here and which makes this third novel suffer the most from listlessness. 

There is a lot of convenience and coincidence here, especially with the set up of the bar, which takes up a lot of the first half of the book. Maybe forty plus years ago it was easy to open a business, but even though Slate was given to Clarissa (and Uncle Noah seems fine with the costs), everything thing goes their way (including Loverlace’s classes to become a lawyer). 

What works here, and really the oil that makes this book series run smoothly, is the refreshingly relaxed friendship between Daniel Valentine and Clarisse Lovelace. They would be fun people to be around and I wouldn’t mind being friends with them. 

Slate maybe the weakest entry so far, but even if the usual zaniness has been reduced here, there is a fun time to be had here.  

Books: Cobalt (Valentine and Lovelace #2) by Nathan Aldyne (1982)

 “The setting? Provincetown, circa the early 1980s, otherwise known as Sodom-by-the-Sea. The place? Only the hottest party in town, darling, and you’re invited! Clarisse, for one, is thrilled to strap on her dancing shoes: Not only is there an entire gaggle of gay men (who better to appreciate her divine diva-tude?), but some of them are very pretty (and Ma’amselle does like her eye-candy). Even better, a murder is announced, and since it’s nobody that anyone knew well, Clarisse is free to disregard all the niceties of Oh, how terrible, and concentrate entirely on poking into other people’s business. Valentine’s on hand to help, of course, though a little distracted—I mean, if a gorgeous gay bartender can’t find love in 1980s P’town, he might as well hand in his Donna Summer albums.”

Despite being the second book in a series of four, Cobalt (much like McDowell’s Jack and Susan series), appears to reboot itself, as no mention is made of their previous bout with murder. The book gives a great view of the pre-AIDS era 1980s and the party scene in Provincetown, with Daniel Valentine working at the Throne and Scepter bar, while browsing for Mr. Right. This time, as well, Clarisse nabs a hunky cop all her own. But what stays the same is murder and when a hunky drug dealer ends up washed up on the sea shore, both Valentine and Lovelace must try and figure out what is going on. As the story unfolds, they get to hear endless secrets, the jealousies of many gay men, and lies behind the beautiful faces around them, all which can be a motive for murder. 

As with the first book, there is a lot of merriment on top of the murder, drugs and seemly contemporaneous aspect of gay men that remains the same in 2026 as did in the early 80s. Still, Valentine and Lovelace continue their breezy Nick and Nora, Thin Man-style relationship, the biting humor that only dear friends can get away with. 

But these books (and the ones written under McDowell’s own name, along with Axel Young), are such strange period pieces and now maybe that’s why these works (outside his Gothic Horror tales) are mostly out of print and hard find on the secondary market (then, when found, tend to be very expensive). The sad fact is these books will only appeal to collectors and (probably) by gay men who either survived the early AIDS years or came of age after, and are curious to know what those pre-HIV days were like (though bitchy queens remain a constant no matter what the decade is). So as funny McDowell and Dennis Schuetz can be here, you can’t help realize that the whole jump-into-bed-with-any-hot-man-around will come to a chilling end, because AIDS was on the horizon and places like "P-town" were going to be devastated by it. 

I continue to hunt for book three and four, but as noted, those books are out of print, though they are offered as an ebook – but I like physical books. While Valancourt Books still offers some of McDowell’s horror tales (in both paperback and digital versions), the last company to offer these gay-themed mysteries in paperback appears to been Felony & Mayhem Press from about a dozen years ago (though, again, a digital format are still available). And, at one time, Alyson Books, formerly known as Alyson Publications, who specialized in LGBT works of various genres, also released these books. I occasionally come across them, but even they have become expensive.

Books: Vermilion (Valentine and Lovelace #1) By Nathan Aldyne (1980)

"A dead young hustler is found on the lawn of a queer-baiting legislator. Boston's political and queer communities are up in arms about the matter, and police are bent on finding the killer -- fast. Best friends Daniel Valentine and Clarisse Lovelace team up and hit the streets of Boston. Through a sinister underworld of bars and baths, bondage and blackmail, they're out to solve a very bizarre murder.” 

Vermilion is first of four books mysteries that Michael McDowell and Dennis Schuetz (who penned the 1985 episode ANSWER ME from the syndicated anthology series TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE) wrote under the pseudonym of Nathan Aldyne. 

Much like Joseph Hanson’s Dave Brandsetter series I read a few years ago, Vermilion will give a a reader a bit of a culture shock, especially to those not familiar with the 1970s and pre-AIDS era gay scene (sadly, both men died of the disease, Schuetz in 1989 and McDowell a decade later). It’s a bit un-PC, which reflects how a lot of gay men and drag queens dealt with each other. It is also a delightful look at era that is both in the past and in the present (queens will always be mean to other queens). It’s has a very familiar format, yet original, funny, but a bit dark. 

I found a quick and enjoyable read, mostly interesting for its depiction of gay life in Boston (which was probably the same in any big city at the time). Daniel does take a bit to start liking at first, and Clarisse is rather clichéd fag hag, but it was a fun read and, again., an interesting time capsule for anyone who did not grow up in that era and might want to know how the gays that came before the 21^st Century used to live.