The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Done to Death
By Charles Atkins
Severn House Publishers, 2014
Four stars

I picked this up out of curiosity from a notice in one of my gay mystery Facebook links. It’s the third in a series—the Lilian and Ada Mystery Series—featuring a lesbian couple who, blessedly, are the age of my husband and me. Lil and Ada get drawn into murder mysteries, and although they refer to Miss Marple, it’s more like a lesbian “Murder She Wrote,” complete with a quaint small town and quirky local denizens.

Atkins writes very well, and delivers not only a plot complicated enough to stretch credulity but a rich stew of characters who keep the gears in your brain working furiously. This particular adventure involves Lenore Parks, a ruthless reality TV star (who is NOT remotely like Martha Stewart, but of course makes one think of Martha Stewart), her hapless children, and the entire network of do-or-die employees who populate her office tower in Manhattan. The juicy part of this storyline is that Atkins has dragged Hollywood into the mix, where everybody is scrabbling for the next big hit just in order to keep their careers alive. It is a perfect high-tension set up for mayhem and madness.

As I was reading this, the Sunday epistle in my suburban New Jersey Episcopal church was the famous (and mis-quoted) passage from St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy: “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Note the wording. Being rich isn’t bad. Wanting to be rich isn’t necessarily bad – but it can lead to big trouble. Atkin’s third Lilian and Ada mystery is entirely about all the kinds of evil to which the love of money can give root. It is also about the generally grasping and deceitful world of Hollywood entertainment – something I can get down with.

Ada and Lilian are two of my favorite people ever. They could literally be friends of mine, but for the fact that they were both married long-term and widowed before they discovered each other. Like Jessica Fletcher, they are both comfortable and a bit edgy. For women in their sixties, they are fit and stylish, which is what happens to draw them into this particular convoluted narrative.

Atkins is careful to do something that most mainstream (i.e. straight male) authors won’t do: he peppers the story with gay people, just to make a point that we exist. Lil and Ada are perhaps the anomaly – but Ada’s gay grandson Aaron, and the town’s young police deputy, Jamie, each quietly remind the reader that gay folk are part of everyone’s lives. There is a darker plotline involving gay identity, but I won’t speak about that for fear of spoiling the fun. I really enjoyed this and look forward to reading more of Atkins’ gay-themed work.