Benbow, former actor and author of Male Model and Daytime Drama, takes a disparate group of gay men, some of whom appeared as minor characters in his previous novels, and shoves them on board the RMS Princess Diana for a cruise (in all senses of the word) of the Mediterranean. But a psychopath threatens to send the ship to the bottom with all seamen on board.

Kurt is a wealthy bodybuilding champion and partner to Rick, an Asian-American newscaster; Zach is a wannabe photographer; and Hayden is an athlete whose twin brother Clay was the hero of Daytime Drama. Among Benbow’s new creations are Kirby, the trainer with a problem; Rex Lassiter, the homophobic owner of the gay cruise shipping line; comedian Jebb Miller; and chubby Garrett Gardner, based on the author’s friend Bruce Villanch.

Benbow grabs the reader by the balls with the opening chapter in which the ship is off the coast of Italy when slightly pissed Jorge Camarillo has hot anonymous sex on the Compass Deck of the RMS Princess Diana and makes the mistake of discovering the identity of his partner.

“In a flash, the stranger reached down and grabbed Jorge’s legs. In a burst of almost superhuman strength, he lifted and flipped Jorge up and backwards. Jorge was too stunned to scream; he could only feebly try to grab at the railing. He got a tentative grip, but his fingers slipped off the wet teak. Finally finding his horrified voice, he began screaming as he flew over the railing and down sixty-five feet into the churning white water of the Princess Diana’s wake.”

Great first chapter and Benbow never lets up. The characters may all be too much of a wet dream and the final solutions too much of fanciful wish fulfillment but it’s a bloody good horny read.

If you’re a fan of unusual sleuths then The Sex Club Murders and Other Kinky Tales (Nazca Plains) by Markus Larsen is a must read – although the book could do with a good proof read and a better lay-out.

Larsen, a kinky cub who has been a member of the American leather fraternity for three decades gives full rein to his interests in B&D, pissing, leather, and humiliation in this selection of short stories. Only two of them are real mystery stories: the title story and ‘Dick Strong and the Case of the Missing Slave’.

‘The Sex Club Murders’ is explicitly nuanced and set in The Anchor, a leather fraternity establishment in which two murders are committed. The nominal sleuth of the tale, told in first person, is a slave. He lovingly describes the venue and solves the double murder with his ample deductive powers. The nameless slave is a great addition to the gay mystery cannon but the story would have benefitted from being less rushed.

I hope Larsen continues with this master/slave combo of sleuths.

www.davebenbow.com

www.thenazcaplainscorp.com/markus_larsen.aspx

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