"Death of a Pirate King"

[NL Gassert]

I finished reading Josh Lanyon’s latest Adrien English mystery, Death of a Pirate King, and I LOVED the book (thanks, Ella, for pestering me to make time to read).

I’m a big fan of Adrien. It was good to see his harder side – no pun intended – but I don’t get the fan talk about his fear of commitment. Last I checked “fear of commitment” meant avoidance of long-term relationships. Didn’t Adrien just spent two years with Guy? They clearly had a committed, monogamous relationship. A comfortable, satisfying relationship. But there’s a difference between “good relationship” and “rest of your life relationship.” Guy just wasn’t the one and Adrien knew that. And, come on, do you really want Adrien to end up with Guy?

Will he ever end up with Jake? Maybe. Maybe not. Jake has his own issues. I do wonder how much of a knee-jerk reaction Jake’s coming out was. (By the way, that man has serious commitment issues and he married, which just goes to show that marrying or hanging on to a comfortable relationship has nothing to do with true commitment of the heart.)

Anyway, I loved the book and I recommend it to any fan of gay mysteries or good writing (even those, like myself, who do not generally enjoy the first-person point of view).