Books

MYSTERY MAN

Michael Craft, author of the Mark Manning mystery series, will visit Houston to sign copies of his latest, Hot Spot (St. Martin's Press), at Murder by the Book on November 8 at 5:30 p.m. Twice nominated for a Lambda award, Craft was named "one of the top novelists in the cultishly popular gay mystery genre" by Entertainment Weekly.

In this Hot Spot excerpt, Mark Manning and his partner, Neil Waite, chat while foraging for breakfast in their kitchen:

So I told him about my dream, how the setting was and wasn't our living room, how I'd watched two men in business suits heat up for some steamy sex on a tasseled Victorian couch.

"But that's absurd," he interrupted. I was about to agree when he continued, "Victorian? Not in our living room." Neil was kidding (sort of), but I appreciated his discerning taste. The man had standards, and he stuck to them.

I agreed, "It was absurd-not just the setting, the clothes, and the sex, but the identity of the parties involved."

"Anyone I know?" Neil opened a bag of pastries and bagels left over from Saturday's breakfast. Jabbing a doughnut with his finger, he judged it fresh enough to serve again and emptied the bag onto a platter. The bagels, obligingly, didn't need to be tested, there being no way to distinguish stale specimens from fresh.

"Truth is, I couldn't see either of their faces, but one of the men addressed the other as-get this-Blain."

Neil turned, arching his brows. "The Republican? How delicious."