A Cure for the Winter Blahs

If you were the perpetrator of homicide upon the person of Michael Stark, not a jury in the world would convict you. For one thing, Michael is a perfect specimen of young male splendor.

Handsome face, delightful pectorals, and abs you could eat breakfast off.

Michael has been generous with his body, that no one can dispute; his best friend reports that the trail of men "had picked up and summarily dropped since he came out of the closet at age fourteen would stretch around the island of Manhattan several times." There are other reasons for the envy and loathing of this voluptuous Adonis: Michael is one of the few young men who owns a car and has a house on Fire Island, plus his "hideously expensive" penthouse in Manhattan with the $200,000 kitchen featuring the Le Cornue professional stove that Michael never uses.

Michael also boasts a sterling Connecticut blue blood lineage. His term at a prestigious college was problematic; Michael was not the brightest bulb in the marquee, but finished his degree as his mother keeps adding buildings to the campus.

Even Michael's best friend, Robert is ambivalent toward him. While Robert erroneously presumes that he will be the fortunate recipient of used crumbs (men) from Michael's banquet table, Michael constantly ridicules Roberts "average" physique and clothing. Michael spends more money on his rags in a tony clothier in an hour than Robert earns in a month.

Yes, indeed, Michael has his share of enemies but here's the twist: "his boyfriend" as referred to in the title of this novel is not Michael, but Max, the intended "groom" of Michael! Seems that after Michael discovers he is finally in love with a man and proposes a ceremony to sanctify their union, Michael is rudely dumped at the altar. Max disappears with Michael's Matisse and Robert and Michael are off in a hot vengeful pursuit. Their search leads them to Provincetown. They end up discovering the dead body of Max and Michael is of course, considered the prime suspect in the murder.

This lightweight mystery appears to be designed for summer beach reading, but when this reviewer was confronted with the melancholic Married Man by Edmund White, I found this to be the favored cure for the gray November blahs.

RECOMMENDED READING; ,i>Someone Killed His Boyfriend by David Stukas, 2001, Kensington Books, NY, ISBN # 0-7582-0038-2

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