What do you think?
Rate this book
Finale: Short Stories of Mystery and Suspense
Book by
- GenresShort StoriesLGBT
288 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1989
1 person is currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Michael Nava
33 books339 followersMichael Nava is the author of a groundbreaking series of crime novels featuring a gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Nava is a six-time recipient of the Lambda Literary Award in the mystery category, as well as the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award for gay and lesbian literature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 28, 2023
Out of the four Alyson Books anthologies I've read (two SF and fantasy, one horror, and, now, one thriller) this one is by far the most consistently competent, and I wasn't expecting to like it at all. Mystery isn't for me, but pretty much none of these are whodunits.
The best story, Street People, belongs to the book's editor, Michael Nava. It's also the longest, giving its characters time to develop. It immediately gave me that this-writer-knows-what-he's-doing feeling. It's also really heavy, dealing with childhood sexual abuse, forced prostitution, AIDS, and grimey street life. It's yet another story about someone overcoming trauma and learning not to blame themselves for it, and I've realized that really is my vibe.
Richard Hall's Death Writes a Story does a beautiful job of flipping the script on the reader. The perspective character seems okay at first, but gets worse and worse, slowly moving from protagonist to antagonist, until his hypocrisy hits a fever-pitch and you desperately want him to fail.
Vincent Lardo's All About Steve is a fun bit of showbiz backstabbing and ladder climbing. Katherine V. Forrest's Jessie is a solid cop thriller, but I didn't love the multiple perspectives. Phil Andros's Death and the Tattoo (one of two hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold stories) is a bit too goofy for me, and the killers motives are pretty ridiculous, but it's readable.
Like the horror collection I'd previously read, the specter of AIDS hovers darkly. In Alan Irwin's Skip, a man assumes the identity of someone who died of AIDS to hide his criminal past. Safe sex is bluntly mentioned in multiple stories, as are references to distant characters who'd died of AIDS.
Only two of the eight stories fell totally flat for me.
Gerald Libonati's Reunion was out-of-place as the only story with a supernatural element, with its clunky and groan-inducing understanding of reincarnation.
Ivy Burrowes's sparsely-written Terminal Anniversary was too short for the amount of characters it throws at you, leaving not one to have an impact, and has a twist too reminiscent of Psycho.
3.5, rounded up.
The best story, Street People, belongs to the book's editor, Michael Nava. It's also the longest, giving its characters time to develop. It immediately gave me that this-writer-knows-what-he's-doing feeling. It's also really heavy, dealing with childhood sexual abuse, forced prostitution, AIDS, and grimey street life. It's yet another story about someone overcoming trauma and learning not to blame themselves for it, and I've realized that really is my vibe.
Richard Hall's Death Writes a Story does a beautiful job of flipping the script on the reader. The perspective character seems okay at first, but gets worse and worse, slowly moving from protagonist to antagonist, until his hypocrisy hits a fever-pitch and you desperately want him to fail.
Vincent Lardo's All About Steve is a fun bit of showbiz backstabbing and ladder climbing. Katherine V. Forrest's Jessie is a solid cop thriller, but I didn't love the multiple perspectives. Phil Andros's Death and the Tattoo (one of two hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold stories) is a bit too goofy for me, and the killers motives are pretty ridiculous, but it's readable.
Like the horror collection I'd previously read, the specter of AIDS hovers darkly. In Alan Irwin's Skip, a man assumes the identity of someone who died of AIDS to hide his criminal past. Safe sex is bluntly mentioned in multiple stories, as are references to distant characters who'd died of AIDS.
Only two of the eight stories fell totally flat for me.
Gerald Libonati's Reunion was out-of-place as the only story with a supernatural element, with its clunky and groan-inducing understanding of reincarnation.
Ivy Burrowes's sparsely-written Terminal Anniversary was too short for the amount of characters it throws at you, leaving not one to have an impact, and has a twist too reminiscent of Psycho.
3.5, rounded up.
August 10, 2021
Unless you really want to dig in and write the equivalent of a short story yourself, it's often hard to review a book of short stories.
I will say that some of these are barely "mystery stories", some of them are either too short or else the writers throw away the conclusions with a couple of quick sentences.
But others are interesting. The most interesting is possibly the final story, All About Steve by Vincent Lardo... which somehow manages to feel like an American gay Agatha Christie story. I also liked that Reunion by Gerald Libonati was a slightly more fantastical story, albeit one of the ones where the ending just kind of drops out of the sky.
What is interesting is that the stories have gay folk in a variety of roles. Mostly as protagonists, but equally the victims, villains and investigators. And sometimes it's incidental, and sometimes integral to the story.
Not a set of stories I think I'll be returning to, but an interesting exercise.
I will say that some of these are barely "mystery stories", some of them are either too short or else the writers throw away the conclusions with a couple of quick sentences.
But others are interesting. The most interesting is possibly the final story, All About Steve by Vincent Lardo... which somehow manages to feel like an American gay Agatha Christie story. I also liked that Reunion by Gerald Libonati was a slightly more fantastical story, albeit one of the ones where the ending just kind of drops out of the sky.
What is interesting is that the stories have gay folk in a variety of roles. Mostly as protagonists, but equally the victims, villains and investigators. And sometimes it's incidental, and sometimes integral to the story.
Not a set of stories I think I'll be returning to, but an interesting exercise.
February 14, 2014
Classic anthology with ironic stories and of course a "lost" Henry Rios tale, "Street People". Richard Hall's "Death Writes a Story" and Vincent Lardo's "All About Steve" ought to be in a "general" i.e., 'straight' anthologies, they have that kind of twist.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews