The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

No Angels Wept (Angelo Perrotta, book 2)
By Frank Spinelli
Deerfield Press, 2023
Four stars

For all its references to Frank Spinelli’s first Angelo Perrotta book, “Perfect Flaw,” this complex, unsettling story holds up as a complete stand-alone. Lured to Los Angeles by the opportunity to expiate his guilt over a grisly murder on the East coast (that’s book one), Angelo gets sucked into the orbit of a trash-talking radio star called Rocky Thorn and her slippery, sexy producer, Wes. Rocky Thorn is known as the Queen of the Unknown LGBTQ community of Los Angeles, and her bombastic radio voice and die-hard fanbase both fascinate and appall Angelo.

A serial killer seems to be on the loose in LA, preying on young gay sex-workers. Angelo begins to build a messy love/hate relationship with Rocky and Wes through his appearances on Rocky’s radio show, only to have the murder investigation take on an even more sinister turn with the intrusion of a scientist-turned-evangelical minister who seems to practice conversion therapy.

The book is a wild roller-coaster ride, building in intensity as Angelo tries to find his way on unfamiliar ground. The author’s writing works hard to convey Angelo’s increasing confusion with his situation, as if he’s stumbled into an alien world that he doesn’t quite understand or know how to handle. The reader is carefully manipulated into making the same kind of assumptions and errors that Angelo himself experiences. When Angelo’s boyfriend, New York policeman Jason Murphy, gets added to the mix, things get really crazy.

This is a pretty dark story, and it’s no accident. I’d say it feels like the 1990s, except that much of what Spinelli brings into the plot has an unhappy resonance with the mood of our nation today. The book is an emotional tour-de-force and kept me caught up in it from start to finish.