Thursday, November 6, 2014

Fair Play (All's Fair Series) by Josh Lanyon

I love Josh Lanyon's work.  The first story that I ever read by him was like an Agatha Christie flavored re-imagining of the Lindberg baby kidnapping with a mostly happy ending.  Mr. Lanyon paints beautiful pictures with his words.  Stranger on the Shore was a gorgeous story of a mystery solved and featured lovely vingettes of flash back to another time period.  I jumped at the chance to read his new work, Fair Play.  Here is the cover and the Goodreads blurb:

Setting up house with his new lover was tricky before arson landed his former radical father in the guest bedroom. Now ex-FBI agent Elliot Mills has to figure out who is willing to kill to keep Roland's memoirs from being published.

Meanwhile, a serial killer insists he will only make his confession to Elliot, putting added strain on Elliot's still fragile relationship with Tucker.
I fell in love the moment that I started reading this book. I loved the amazing trip back through time that Elliot takes us on. He works to rebuild his father's mysterious past as a member of a group of activists during the tumultuous 1960's. It reminded me of an episode of Cold Case that was so realistic that it took you straight back to that time and made you feel as if you were experiencing it all for yourself. I loved seeing how each of the members of the group was changed by their experiences in the group and how they grew and changed in the years moving forward. Each member really seemed to go their own way. Roland keeps most of his beliefs intact and gets only more sure that he is right over the years (causing problems with his son on occasion). The others become rich political leaders, uber feminists, supposedly dead folks, and an organic farmer. Elliot solves so many mysteries as he works his way through the group to solve the problem of who would want his father dead. He finds missing persons, solves decades old crimes and stops an unexpected killer before they can truly take aim at Roland. It gives such a clear view back into the 1960's and the culture of the day. I loved every moment of this book and could not fall asleep until I had finished reading it. It was a book that you could not put down. I look forward to reading more from Josh Lanyon. He is definitely a new favorite author. I highly recommend his works. So well written and such amazing imagery. This book is M/M and adult in nature. But I think you'd be greatly missing out if you let that sway you from reading it.

You can find Fair Play on Goodreads. Josh Lanyon can be found on his website, his blog and on Twitter. You can purchase his works on Amazon. I give Fair Play 5 Fairies for a book that I absolutely loved every moment of. I can not overstate how much I loved this book. It led me to bring out my college textbooks on the 60's to revisit the era that seemed so much like magic to me as a teen. I plan to read all of Mr. Lanyon's works.

2 comments:

Shooting Stars Mag said...

I need to read more by this author! He really is great. :)

Nice review,

Lauren

Beena said...

I was just browsing by and stumbled upon your lovely blog. It has interesting and informative posts that I enjoy xD Great review as well, def. checking out this read now! Hope you check out my blog? Keep in touch x

Benish | Feminist Reflections
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