lilyheron 's review for:

A Simple Suburban Murder by Mark Richard Zubro

5.0

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Tom and Scott are my new love. With excellent pacing and plunging to genuinely sickening depths, the first instalment of this queer amateur sleuth detective mystery will absolutely not be for everyone, but I thought it was powerful and raw. When a colleague turns up violently murdered in Tom Mason's classroom, he gets pulled into a dangerous and thrilling mystery revealing the rotten core of suburban Illinois and dark secrets in the heart of Chicago. Initially fairly light-hearted, the tone takes an extremely and increasingly dark turn as the book goes on, involving child prostitution rings, sadomasochism, and snuff films, and with some fairly impressive sensitivity and awareness, especially considering how long ago it was published. My only complaint is that I felt the violence against Tom was often reported from a distance, when I think it would have been more effective to feel the terror and confusion from his immediate perspective. I loved the gentle, loving dynamic between Tom and Scott, and I have high hopes for this series.

cw: child abuse; child prostitution; child sex trafficking; torture; references to child pornography; violence; mutilation of a child; violent death of children; murder; f-slurs; homophobia.

rep: gay MC; gay LI; tertiary character with non-specific "learning difficulties"; largely queer cast.

CAWPILE: 9.7 (5*)