A Do-Si-Do With Death (de ParisDude)
Synopsis When ’Dead as a Doornail’ was published in 1998, we thought we’d seen the last of Stan Kraychik. But thanks to persistent sleuthing, a final adventure has been uncovered, sassy quips all at the ready, nary a hair out of place, and now primed for its debut. Yes, Stan is back for one final adventure! Stan Kraychik has hung up his scissors, traded them in for a Private Eye license. Sometime nemesis, more often friend Boston PD Lt. Vito Branco, has a soft spot for Stan and sends him a tip: snoop around the First Annual Mucho Macho Honcho Competition being held at The Park Plaza Hotel. Paladin, a gay cowboy, has filed a police report that his Collar Tips had
Dead as a Doornail (de ParisDude)
Synopsis A Stan Kraychik Mystery, Book 6. Newly wealthy psychologist-by-training, hairstylist-by-experience Stan Kraychik buys the last unrenovated brownstone in Boston’s fabulously chic South End only to have the renovations held up by a freak April snowstorm – and the murder of the young, attractive contractor inside his structurally unsound brownstone. Because the contractor resembled Stan, Lt. Vito Branco of the Boston Police Department thinks Stan might have been the intended target. While Branco wants Stan to leave town while he investigates the murder, Stan has ideas of his own. Looking into the death, Stan discovers that underneath the well-kept facade of his glamorous neighborhood lies a web of ill-kept secrets, jealousies, and resentments. In the midst of all of it
Life Drawing (de ParisDude)
Synopsis Born in Iowa to the sounds of Bob and Bing Crosby and the Dorsey brothers, Mickey grows up to the comforting images of his living room TV and the reassuring ruts of his parents’ life. During the restless summer of his senior year in high school, drifting away from the girlfriend he could never quite love, Mickey spends a night with another boy, and his world will never be the same. On a barge floating down the Mississippi, he falls in love with James, a black card player from New Orleans, and in time the two of them settle, bristling with sexual intensity, in the French Quarter – until a brief affair destroys James’s trust and sends Mickey to
Time to Check Out (de ParisDude)
Synopsis A Stan Kraychik Mystery, Book 5. It’s October in Key West, as quiet as the tropical island will ever be. Or so thinks Boston salon star Stan “The Widow” Kraychik, who has recently lost his lover. Stan is grief-stricken, but he’s also grotesquely wealthy, thanks to a landmark cash settlement to a domestic partner, as well as his dead lover’s life insurance. Instead of sanctuary in an off-season resort town, Stan finds himself in a fizzy, dizzy world that few tourists experience. The trouble starts when Stan is forced to change his guest-house. When he goes to settle his bill, the manager is on the floor of her office – dead by violence. Never one to mind his own
Second Son (de ParisDude)
Synopsis Mark Valerian, the second son in the Valerian family, is ill, but determined to live life to the fullest—and live forever if he can. When he discovers Bill Mackey, a young theatrical designer who is also suffering from this disease neither wants to name, he also finds the lover of his dreams. Together they develop an incredible plan to survive that will take them to Europe, to rustic Maine, and finally to the wonderful seaside summer mansion of the Valerian family, where father and son confront the painful ties of kinship…and the joyous bonds of love. Originally published in 1989, it was Ferro’s final novel, completed in the months leading to his death from AIDS as he cared for
Mask for a Diva (de ParisDude)
Synopsis A Stan Kraychik Mystery, Book 4 – Stan Kraychik, Boston hair-dresser extraordinaire, has been hired as the wig master’s assistant for the upcoming season of a local opera company. The Italian opera diva and aging soprano Marcella Ostinata, whose use of English is determined by her irritation level, will perform the lead. Before Stan heads to Europe to meet his lover’s parents, one of the actresses from the company kills herself by jumping into the path of a train. Befriending the benefactor, Stan moves into a house on the benefactor’s estate, where a very attractive deaf/mute boy takes a fancy to him. As the company heads unsteadily towards opening night, murder threatens the entire festival and Stan finds himself
Dead On Your Feet (de ParisDude)
Synopsis A Stan Kraychik Mystery, Book 3 — Spring is in the air and Stan has been with his boyfriend, ballet dancer and choreographer, Rafik, for a year. Alas, jealousy rears its ugly head and Stan storms out of a dinner party given by the director of the ballet company. After crying himself to sleep, he is woken in the morning by Rafik’s phone call. Stani, there is great trouble. Max Harkey is dead. Suspects abound. Two young ballet dancers, dating each other but both in love with a third unattainable person. The mistress of the company, whose niece was about to be the lead in Max’ next production before she fell and broke her hip. The houseboy who sends
Mémoires d’Hadrien (de ParisDude)
Synopsis Cette œuvre, qui est à la fois roman, histoire, poésie, a été saluée par la critique française et mondiale comme un événement littéraire. En imaginant les Mémoires d’un grand empereur romain, l’auteur a voulu « refaire du dedans ce que les archéologues du XIXe siècle ont fait du dehors ». Jugeant sans complaisance sa vie d’homme et son œuvre politique, Hadrien n’ignore pas que Rome, malgré sa grandeur, finira un jour par périr, mais son réalisme romain et son humanisme hérité des Grecs lui font sentir l’importance de penser et de servir jusqu’au bout. « … Je me sentais responsable de la beauté du monde », dit ce héros dont les problèmes sont ceux de l’homme de tous les temps : les dangers
The Blue Star (de ParisDude)
Synopsis Two heroes, reflective Peter and Byronic Chase, indulge their youthful appetites in Florence. Over the next 20 years their paths diverge and reconverge. Chase marries into the Italian aristocracy and Peter pursues his passion for Lorenzo, a beautiful young Florentine. The past impinges on the present as the story of Chase’s ancestor, Orvil Starkweather, is revealed – the secrets of his life sounding a counterpoint to Chase’s. New York City’s Central Park and the imposing figure of designer Frederick Law Olmsted provide a mysterious connection to Chase’s life. The story of the two men unfolds in Florence and New York exposing the unimagined and startling connection with the past, and taking them finally on a fateful cruise up the
A Cry in the Desert (de ParisDude)
Synopsis A story of the battle against tyranny that remains as relevant now as when it was written. A group of friends living in Las Vegas are happy and successful: doctors, lawyers, journalists, and decorators. However, their lives go from utopian to dystopian when a law passes to allow the quarantine of those suspected to have AIDS. The government, in a blatant overreach, closes the Nevada border. Those tagged as homosexuals disappear in the middle of the night. Spurred on, former Public Defender wunderkind Larry Armstrong and his lover Dr. Carl Woodsford fight Dr. Alfred Botts, a brilliant strategist who creates a concentration camp in the middle of the Nevada desert where, once behind the tall walls, people are never