Murderous statues, demented drag queens, political bombings, ex-gay ministries, espionage, and romance are all in a day's work for a top secret agent. But the gloves are off when Agent Buck 98 comes up against The Jesus Injection
A fun read. The characters are quite an awesome pair. Though, I predicted the ending, I'm quite impress how the author jive everything for this great adventure of Buck98 and Noxia46. 😊
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Buck Miller, aka agent 98, his Hitchock-look-alike boss, agent 69 (whom he calls Muffin), and then his frenemy agent 46, whose real name we never learn - only her case-name, Noxia von Tussell (pronounced TOO-sel).
It is a wry, bantering, fast-paced reversal of the James Bond genre, with a clear homage to "Get Smart" (without the absurdist slapstick). Buck and Noxia go up against a right-wing Christian organization out to purge America of moral decay - and we all know what that means. There are some surprisingly dark moments in here, as Buck and Noxia figure out what Dr. Raven Evangelista is up to; and a bit of preaching to the choir on gay rights.
Eric Andrews-Katz is a welcome addition to the world of male writers of fun gay fiction. Not every book needs to be a romance. Presumably there are or will be more in this series, and they'll be just as much fun to read.
Eric Andrews-Katz loves musicals, and you can tell -- not just from the Broadway references here and there in "The Jesus Injection," but from the way the whole enterprise bounces along -- wittily, colorfully, and with the occasional fist raised, Miserables-like, in support of gay rights. This is your summer hammock read, devoured in one very pleasurable, very chucklesome afternoon. Although you will probably want to make it last two. I was thoroughly entertained and so I'm looking for more EAK for *my* hammock this summer!
Well, I judged this book by its cover and I very much mis-judged it.
It had been filed in a booksale alongside a mountain of other LGBTQ+ fiction and erotica. With a title like "The Jesus Injection" I put my money on it being erotica. It is not.
Instead, the pages held a gay secret agent as the protagonist in a relatively suspenseful tale of intrigue. There's flirting, some sex, plenty of banter with his partner, and there's lots of fighting. The characters all border on charicature, but at least the story was not predictable.
In the end I enjoyed it despite it not being what I'd anticipated.
This reads like a sort of gay version of James Bond. I found it humorous and entertaining. Buck Miller comes across a bit hapless but not too stupid and I really liked Noxia Von Tussell, who turned to be a hoot, not not mention one spunky agent 69, nicknamed Muffin. Comedy of errors meets James Bond-type villains and a lot of sticky situations ensure. Moving on to book 2.
As you all know Mark likes to take a side-step every so often and read something different and now for something very different. I found this story to be very entertaining and all round fun. For me personally it was like reading a gay James Bond / special agent spoof. I don't know if it was intended that way, but the character names I found hilarious and gave it that sort of feel. The gay take on 007.
Agent Buck 98 is sent on a mission with his rival, agent 46 code name Noxia von Tüssëll which is supposedly a German name. The small problem I had here was that the character ë doesn't exist in German and the letter X is used very rarely in German orthology and especially not in names. However once I managed to gloss over this, it didn't detract from the wonderful dynamic these two MCs have going on. Their relationship is based on one of rivalry but behind the snark and witty dialogues they worked really well as a team and would never let each other down. It was the perfect pairing and made for some extremely humorous moments that had me laughing on numerous occasions. Agent Buck is obnoxious and fancies himself as God’s gift to spies, but I couldn’t help liking him somehow. With all his arrogance there was just something quite sexy about it. Obviously it drives his partner mad.
We also have Agent 69 who is called Muffin and is the boss of Buck and Noxia like a kind of M and Q rolled into one. This is the nickname that Buck has for Agent 69 which shows a close working relationship between them. Agent 69 doesn’t like it but tolerates it as Buck being one of his best spies. Agent Buck is openly gay and is a bit of a man-whore to say the least. Although there are a few M/M escapades on the way as in most James Bond films where he always gets the girl agent Buck ends up with Richard the chef and catering manager for all of Dr Raven Evangelista's events. But does he turn out to be the love of Buck’s life? Is Richard all that he seems to be? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find that one out for yourself.
We have another great name for the bad guy, Dr Evangelista. She is head of the organisation Sisters of The Southern Cross with some seriously radical ideas. This was obviously a dig at many extreme religious / political right groups that exist and who think you can just pray the gay away. She is involved in some very shady deals and Buck with Noxia has to get to the bottom of this. Dr Evangelista also has some personal secrets of her own that she also doesn’t want being public knowledge as it would be very bad for her reputation. So better to hush it up and sweep it under the carpet or even better try to eradicate it all together. I liked the way this character baddy is portrayed and developed. Upper-class, cool as an iceberg on the outside, but you know that something dark and evil is hiding underneath the surface. I always like female baddies as I always feel you can make them so much more evil and Eric does this very well.
I guess that it takes all sorts and everyone has the right to their opinion never mind how extreme they may be. As I said it portrays the extreme Christian right, almost Sarah Palin style. I guess if anyone is inclined that way the book may have the potential to offend, but then I guess they wouldn't or shouldn't be reading books like this anyway. However, if you take the extreme presented here light heartedly then it is quite funny in its own right to use this as a form of "bad guy" like a female version of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Quite satirical in essence. This organisation has an hidden agenda which Noxia and Buck have to discover. They both stumble across a file called The Jesus Injection. The hunt is now on to discover what this exactly is and it would be the kind of radical thing that such a villain as Dr Evangelista would want to research and develop.
There are lots of exciting moments and action as any spy thriller should have which kept me thoroughly entertained. I don't feel as if there is any gay political agenda hidden within the book, but as in any good spy movie it uses extremes between good and bad to make for an entertaining read. The plot is well thought out, well paced and didn't leave me disconnected at any point as to what was happening or where the story was going as everything gradually comes together and all is revealed at the end. A spy story focusing around a gay theme and gay a gay MC. Where the focus is not about Buck’s “gayness” and relationships but about him being a spy and all the adventure that goes with it. Was it enough to make me read the second book in the series Balls and Chain? Well, I have it on my TBR list for sure and no doubt will get to it as soon as I can. All in all a thoroughly entertaining, enthralling read with a twist.
This was a fun read! ...very tongue-in-cheek. Lol. When I read the blurb I was really intrigued with the concept of a gay James Bond. I admit I was expecting a darker more serious story, which I do like, but this ended up being completely different in a way that was full of fun and action.
Buck- your basic ‘Gay 007′, is described as an Orlando Bloom lookalike. He is full of himself, wry sarcasm and humor, but in a funny, highly comedic almost self-deprecating way. The way all the characters are introduced at the beginning as well as the humorous ‘tight spots’ Buck finds himself in from page one, I just had to let myself go and enjoy the ride. There is definitely a mystery, and we are teased throughout wondering who actually might be a double agent and who is on who’s side.
If you like drag queens, murderous statues, sloppy French accents, fun trysts in fancy-smancy hotels, and catered political functions, a sexy female agent that goes by the name Noxia (Its German, right?!) a boss that looks like Alfred Hitchcock, (Agent 69) but whom Buck calls ‘Muffin’, then you’ll enjoy the adventure and mayhem starting from the first few pages of this James Bond-type’ action very tongue-in-cheek series.
I enjoyed this fun read, and look forward to the next in this series that gives tribute to ‘Get Smart’ and is full of wry humor and adventure. Not what I'd label a romance, but more of a lightweight whodunit.
Interesting plot for a gay "who done it", but more far fetched for my personal taste. Noxia, Agent 69, Raven and Ann Margaret all in one book? For some too good to be true, for me, not so much. The settings were described with nice detail. Some over-the-top stereotyping of characters and some blatant tagging of all christian conservatives. Yes there are a proportionately large number of conservative Christians out there who hate gays let alone accept them, but not all are like that. This story seemed mostly one sided because of that. The characters were kind of caricatures with overblown personas of the "hard boiled" kind. I had the feeling that he was trying to be a modern day Raymond Chandler with a gay religious theme. The one liners sometimes worked but mostly didn't. And romance? None to speak of really. I read this for the Rainbow Awards.
This novel was terrible: badly constructed sentences ("Today's views are a lot more liberal than when we were all younger"), poorly defined AND comPLETELY unlikeable characters, "witty" dialogue/banter that just seems mean and not a little homophobic (which I KNOW is not the author's intent), and unBELIEVABLE situations (tripwire lasers?!?). AND...the author cuts away from the sex scenes like an old 50's melodrama.