When I read the first five pages I knew I was in trouble. The writing throughout the book was very flat. Keeping track of all the characters was a monumental feat that left you wondering WHY they were actually written into this novel. About the only completely "fleshed" out character was Scott - The main character's lover who happened to be a Baseball athlete. Sprinkled adorations of this character created many stalls to the story line that I began to NOT care for Tom or Scott. I also found myself cringing at all the location descriptions given to the reader about Chicago. Again, this intricate location detail created a stall to my reading. Hasn't this writer figured out that less is more? Yet, I continued through the 182 pages HOPING to get some real writing style that would drive me to the entertainment value I get when reading a Joseph Hansen novel. How sad I was to see this book finish flat. Time to cleanse my brain with a Dave Brandstetter detective read. Oy....

This has to be one of the dullest mysteries I have read. I felt like the whole book was a mere excuse for the author to express his venom against the Catholic Church. Characters have less personality than dry bread, they are nothing but extreme stereotypes with name labels. The events are almost non-events; things seem to happen but no real progress is made. When the murderer is finally revealed, a reader couldn't care less because it is difficult to remember who is who! And the writing style - after a while, I began to wonder if it was that flat and mundane on purpose!

I liked one thing about this book, though. My copy was only 182 pages long.

I knew this book had to be good when I read the two reviews prior to mine on amazon.com. As a member of the gay community and a recovering Roman Catholic (who thoroughly enjoys the spiritually fulfilling practice of Catholicism I find in the Episcopal Church), not only was I not offended by anything in this book, I actually enjoyed it.

Like the movie "Priest," there are a number of Roman zealots of the "one true church" ilk who are out to write negative reviews of anything that tells it like it is where the Roman Church is concerned whether they've read it or not.

Mr. Zubro is to be congratulated for an engrossing mystery that will surprise its gay and lesbian readers in a positive way, a respectable entry in his "Tom and Scott" series of whodunits.

More power to him!